The UNESCO Chair of Housing has acknowledged its partners having accompanied it during this time and has symbolized it with a piece designed by the artist Antonio Gómez, which includes the logo of the Chair, together with that of the Rovira University and Virgili and the one of UNESCO in a context of iron, cement and stone of Tarragona.
The Seminars of the subject “New Perspectives of Contract Law” took place on 17 December 2018 in the framework of the Master’s Degree in Business and Contract Law offered by the University Rovira i Virgili, in which some researchers from the Chair are involved. The topic addressed by the invited speaker, Mr. Pedro Soler Dorda, notary of Salou, was the role of the notary in business to consumer transactions.
Dr. Elga Molina Roig participated in the round table on the reform of the Law of urban leases delivered in the Conference about housing organized on November 13 by the Barcelona Law Bar (Il.lustre Col.legi d’Advocats de Barcelona) and the Council of Barcelona (Ajuntament de Barcelona).
On December 14, Prof. Nasarre gave the lecture “Beyond property: successful housing contracts and intermediate tenures in a comparative perspective” at the Faculty of Law of the University of Pisa, sharing interventions with Prof. Elena Bargelli and Prof. Teresio Poggio. The seminar, conducted by Prof. Padovani, was held to discuss the progress of the Italian Urban Leases Act of 1998 during the last 20 years.
This year marks 5 years since the establishment of the UNESCO Housing Chair, and a celebration of this achievement took place on 12 December with all partners and researchers of the Chair. The event was attended by the Rector of the University Rovira i Virgili, Dr. Maria José Figueres, and we welcomed Fundación Mutua de Propietarios as a new partner of the Chair.
Lurdes Quintero Gallego, alumni of the URV’s Foundation and UNESCO Housing Chair postgraduate program in mediation, has been awarded the II CEPAC Award for final year and postgraduate projects about human towers (castells), with her project “Mediation castellera”.
Gentrification is a phenomenon expressing in replacement or expulsion of the poor class from the urban center. It is a consequence of speculative strategies in the real estate sector and growing demands of classes with higher purchasing power. The development of gentrification can be explained by lack of public policies to control housing prices and insufficient regulation in this area, originating from the measures to ensure diversity in the cities and make them affordable to a wide group of population in general.
RODRÍGUEZ, Maridalia, “Gentrificación en grandes ciudades” (Diari de Tarragona, 03/12/2018)
Dr. Héctor Simón attended the “Designing appropriate and affordable settlements” workshop, which was organized by the Center of Development Studies and Department of Land Economics of the University of Cambridge on 3 and 4 December. Geoffrey Payne, an expert in urban development that has advised international organizations such as the World Bank or UN-Habitat, also took part in the Workshop, which involved preparing detailed development proposals for a specific site (in Ismailia, Egypt) which are socially acceptable, economically viable and ecologically sustainable.
The researcher of the UNESCO Chair of Housing of the URV Dr. Elga Molina Roig publishes her doctoral thesis “A new regulation of housing tenancies in a European context”. This book undertakes a critical study of the current housing tenancy contract in Spain and proposes a new regulation, which is considered essential to correct the existing dysfunctions in the rental market (lowest rate in Western Europe, wide black market, unaffordability) and, in particular, to turn the tenancy tenure into a real alternative (and not merely frictional) to homeownership as a way of access to housing. The functional model that we propose pursues, on the one hand, stability (fostering open-ended contracts), affordability (promoting referenced rent systems) and flexibility (facilitating withdrawal and sublease rights) of the tenant. On the other hand, it seeks profitability (referenced rent systems at market prices), guarantees and security (deposits, guarantee insurances or a possible legal pledge) of the landlord. To this end, the historical law, positive law and comparative law of countries with the lowest (Greece, Portugal, Italy, Malta and Spain) and the highest rental rates in Europe (Germany, Switzerland and Austria) are considered. In addition, and in order to reinterpret these regulations according to the right to housing, we have analysed the reasonableness and proportionality of the proposed measures to seek a balance between the rights and obligations of the parties.
