Clash between businesses and lofts in Pamplona: “They are put up for sale while the business is operating”

He local trade and housing constitute two essential and core elements of urban life. But in the current context of housing shortageboth worlds can collide. Or at least in regards to apartment projects in ground floortraditional commercial premises that could become lofts. Last July, the Pamplona City Council suspended street-level housing licenses on 90 streets considered commercial hubs of the city. The measure put at least nine owners of eleven premises on a war footing, who had already started the procedures to convert them into apartments. All of them have presented appeals to the municipal decision.

In a measure supported by the tripartite -EH Bildu, Geroa Bai and Contigo-Zurekin- and the PSN, the council approved this suspension for a period of one year with the objective of preserve local commerce in streets considered strategic and waiting to prepare a definitive and downward list of the affected roads. UPN and PP voted against the measure. It is true that professionals – as defended in these pages by the president of the College of Urban Planners, the architect Luis Turiel – maintain that greater residential density fosters healthier local commerce. But what happens if commerce disappears because it is replaced by housing in a context of extreme housing demand?

12.8% OF THE STREETS

The Asiron team claims to want to stop this expansion of housing in locations on streets with commercial life. For this reason, it prepared a plan with the 90 roads considered commercial hubs and where the construction of housing on the ground floor is prohibited, temporarily for one year. This veto already existed in the Old Town, according to the PEPRI – the regulations that govern the historic center – and is also included in some streets of the II Ensanche of a PEAU (Special Urban Action Plan) still pending final approval. The 90 streets represent about 12.8% of the total roads in the Navarrese capital -according to the 2019 census of a total of 692 streets, there are now more- although the government team assured in the September plenary session that it was going to make a downward review of the streets, so that they will be less than those initially proposed. Once the reorganization is definitively approved, the veto on ground floor housing will be consolidated in these commercial axes. The government team has confirmed to this newspaper that the list of streets affected by the measure will be prepared before the end of 2026.

In other streets with less interest for businesses or that have seen business potential languish, the rules will be made more flexible to be able to build on the ground floor. The PEAU of II Ensanche already contemplates this option of lofts in the area of ​​Aralar Street. This being the case, the city council proposes stopping the loss of businesses, on the one hand, and promoting lofts where there is no business, on the other.

HOUSING AND SPECULATION

There are many cases that can occur on our streets. For example, the measure also aims to put a stop to certain speculative operations that some traders have already reported on these pages.

The president of the Rochapea Merchants Association, Fermín Damborenea, denounced that in some cases, the possibility of creating homes – a succulent business given the enormous demand – is affecting active stores. “We have found that owners of premises rented to merchants want to sell those premises. First they offered them to the merchants at very high, excessive prices. The objective is, ‘if you don’t buy it, I’ll put a sign on it’. It is put up for sale while the business is operating until it is sold,” said the president of the Rochapea merchants. This same idea has been presented by municipal government councilors, such as Joxe Abaurrea (EH Bildu) or Mikel Armendáriz (Geroa Bai) in the plenary session. It can be a solid argument to defend local commerce in those cases. But what happens when local businesses continue to fail to flourish in these commercial hubs?

And that is the idea that UPN launches. The regionalist councilor Juan José Echeverría declared in the September plenary session that ground floor homes are already regulated in some areas of Pamplona. And that other measures were necessary to encourage trade. “You solve everything by prohibiting. If people don’t want to open businesses, you prohibit them from opening something else. In order for businesses to open, you have to do other things. We must stop suffocating the self-employed with taxes, fees, etc. That is to say, expanding the prohibition is not the solution,” he said.

Meanwhile, the affected owners continue to fight the municipal decision. They recently sent a press release in which they ask, as they have done in separate legal appeals, that the suspension be “revoked” for all those projects that began their procedures before that date.

However, the agreement approved by the municipal majority is resounding. In the sixth point, it agrees to “order the interruption of the licensing procedures included in its territorial and objective or material scope and, with individual notification of this agreement to those who had submitted license applications prior to the date of adoption of this agreement, in the terms provided in article 70.5 of the Foral Legislative Decree 1/2017.”

Housing and commerce, as can be seen, can collide when the former settles in spaces traditionally reserved for the latter. A shocking sign of the current time.