Xirivella Regulates Ground Floors to Advance Housing Solutions with Guarantees
The City Council promotes an urban planning modification to transform commercial spaces into safe and habitable homes, considering flood risk.
By Pau Ferrer Castelló
••3 min read
AI
Generic image of architectural blueprints with notes and a Mediterranean-style facade in the background.
The Xirivella City Council has initiated the processing of a General Plan modification to regulate the transformation of ground-floor commercial spaces into housing, establishing safety and habitability conditions.
The Xirivella City Council has approved in plenary session the initiation of processing for modification number 27 of the General Plan, aimed at regulating the transformation of ground-floor commercial spaces into housing and establishing specific conditions for their implementation. The objective is to have an urban planning tool that allows addressing the municipality's housing needs with criteria of safety, habitability, and balance between different uses.
The initiative follows the precautionary suspension of use changes agreed upon in September 2025. That measure was adopted due to an increase in applications and the need to study specific regulations, especially after the DANA in October 2024 highlighted the importance of incorporating flood risk prevention into urban planning decisions.
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"Access to housing needs responses, and we are working to provide the City Council with tools that allow us to offer solutions. This modification addresses a situation that lacked sufficiently detailed municipal regulation and establishes clear criteria on where and under what conditions a ground-floor dwelling can be established."
The proposal is structured around three aspects. The first is safety against flood risk, aiming to reduce people's exposure and adapt the conditions for implementing ground-floor housing to existing risks in the municipality. The second is the compatibility of uses, as the modification will specify the conditions under which residential use can coexist with other uses planned for each zone, ordering the transformation of commercial spaces and preserving urban balance. The third aspect is the quality of the resulting homes, incorporating specific conditions related to habitability, ventilation, lighting, accessibility, and safety.
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"The possibility of implementing ground-floor dwellings was already contemplated in the planning. What we are doing now is specifying and reinforcing the conditions so that these transformations occur with guarantees. We want each action to respond to clear rules and consider both those who will live there and the neighborhood as a whole."
The agreement allows progress in the strategic environmental and territorial assessment of the modification and promotes its preferential processing under the urban planning measures provided for municipalities affected by the DANA. This route includes halving the deadlines and requiring only the strictly necessary documentation to achieve its objectives.
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"For too long, housing needs have not found a sufficient response in municipal planning. We are reviewing this situation, correcting past shortcomings, and seeking alternatives that can be useful for our residents. Every step should help us have decent housing and a better-prepared city."
With this initiative, the City Council is advancing in updating its planning to respond to Xirivella's current needs and incorporate the lessons learned from the DANA into the regulation of residential uses.
