Royal Legislative Decree 7/2015 of 30 October passing the Consolidated Act on Land and Urban refurbishment

This regulation is aimed at making the Land Act 2008 compatible with the legal provisions pertinent to urban refurbishment, regeneration and renewal found in Law 8/2013.

Royal Legislative Decree nº 7/2015, of 30 October (RLD 7/2015) aims to harmonise and clarify some definitions and terms, and unifies two laws: (i) Royal Legislative Decree nº 2/2008 of 20 June passing the Consolidated Act on Land; and (ii) articles regarding urban refurbishment, regeneration and urban renewal detailed in Law 8/2013 of 26 June.

Since this law is a consolidated text, no substantial modifications have been implemented, although there is a significant change of the numeration of the articles. In particular, the most relevant innovations are the following:

• A new article provides for definitions of key concepts, focusing on measures regarding the urban environment, town planning and urban transformation.
• The recognition of public and private initiatives aimed at urban construction and transformation. In particular, Article 9 of RLD 7/2015 establishes that, for public initiatives in the urban environment, the Administration shall decide whether to carry out the works directly or by invitation to tender.

The Spanish Government has declared that RLD 7/2015 attempts to balance new construction with urban renewal, boost energy efficiency in the Spanish building stock and eliminate obstacles to urban development.

In this regard, the Ministry of Public Works has pointed out that licenses on urban refurbishment have experienced an annual growth of 28,8 % and investment in refurbishment has increased by 22,6 % within the past 12 months, reaching € 2,568.8 million in the last year.

This new regulation is part of the Spanish Urban Refurbishment Strategy, along with the Economic Incentives of the National Plan 2013-2016 for promoting rental and refurbishment (€ 2,311 million) and the ERDF Funds 2014-2020, Sustainable and Integrated Urban Development (€ 1,500 million).

RLD 7/2015 entered into force on 31 October 2015 and, as a consequence of the reworking of the aforementioned regulations, it has repealed:

• Royal Legislative Decree nº 2/2008 of 20 June passing the Consolidated Act on Land.
• Articles 1 to 19, first to fourth Additional Provisions, first and second Transitional Provisions and also twelfth and eighteenth Final Provisions of Law 8/2013 of 26 June, on urban refurbishment, regeneration and renewal, as well as nineteenth and twentieth Final Provisions of the same Law, insofar as it relates to any of the precepts this Provision repeals.