In Palma's urban planning department, almost 40% of the 314 jobs are currently unfilled. There are 120 vacancies, the leader of the PSOE opposition, Xisco Ducrós, saying: "Palma is immersed in a housing crisis, and one of the services that should be able to address the situation is working with 40% less staff than necessary.
"This directly affects attention provided to citizens. There are no staff to respond to their requests. There are not enough people to issue licences, to implement housing measures and to deal with premises and buildings that do not comply with regulations."
The shortages affect all of the department's sections, the two largest of which are planning management and building discipline. Respectively, they should have 83 and 74 staff. But they currently employ 43 and 52, the building discipline section being responsible for ensuring that construction works are carried out in accordance with the law. After the Medusa Beach Club in Playa de Palma collapsed last May, killing four people, this section came under particular scrutiny.
The housing section, in charge of municipal housing policies, is relatively small. It should have seventeen employees; there are eleven. The works section has 32 people rather than the required 46.
Ducrós observes that the mayor, Jaime Martinez, himself an architect by profession, has an architect assigned to the mayor's office. "This makes no sense because that is not where the architect is needed. The town hall cannot be run as if it were an architect's office.
"The urban planning department needs to be staffed immediately and implement real measures to help combat the housing crisis in Palma."
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Let’s blame tourists and foreign property buyers.
Take-home pay is what, like 1400 euros?
Only in Mallorca could that happen.