At the Canary Islands Cohousing Association, we consider that the new Canary Islands Housing Plan 2026-2030 should incorporate cohousing as an innovative model of access and permanence in housing, widely recognized in different European countries and increasingly present in Spain.
Cohousing constitutes a residential formula based on intentional communities, where each family unit has a private home and shares common spaces and services, promoting mutual help, community participation and a more efficient use of resources. This model can be developed both from citizen initiative and from public promotion, contributing to diversifying housing policies in the Canary Islands.
For this reason, we propose that the Housing Plan incorporates a specific line of promotion of Cohousing through the following measures.
1. Promotion of cohousing from private promotion through housing cooperatives in transfer of use of public land.
What is a housing cooperative in transfer of use? It is a group of people who organize to jointly create and manage their homes. The cooperative maintains ownership of the building and its members have the right to use their housing in a stable manner, in addition to sharing and managing common spaces.
One of the difficulties that these cooperatives encounter is the cost of land, therefore, it is necessary to reserve publicly owned plots for cohousing projects through administrative concession or long-term surface right.
2. Development of public rental cohousing promotions.
The Public Administration can play a fundamental role by incorporating cohousing projects into its protected housing policy.
We have proposed four actions for this measure, which can be found in the link shared at the end of this news.
3. Inter-administrative coordination to promote intentional communities
The development of cohousing requires coordinated action between different areas of the Government of the Canary Islands. rest of public administrations, universities, third sector entities and representative organizations of the cohousing movement.
Likewise, it would be advisable to create an autonomous strategy to promote intentional communities.
- Clarification of the concept of intentional communityl: is one who wants or intends to live together in cohousing.
4. Guarantee the inclusion of people in vulnerable situations
One of the fundamental principles of the future Plan should be to ensure that the cohousing model contributes to improving equity in access to housing.
For this reason, we propose that future actions incorporate mechanisms that facilitate the participation of people and families with greater economic and social difficulties.
Conclusion
The Canary Islands Cohousing Association considers that the Canary Islands Housing Plan 2026-2030 represents an opportunity to decisively incorporate innovative residential models that complement traditional housing policies.
The Canary Islands Cohousing Association expresses its willingness to collaborate with the Government of the Canary Islands in the regulatory, technical and operational development of these proposals, contributing the experience accumulated by the entities and projects that currently promote cohousing in the Canary Islands and in the rest of the State.
