Student accommodation
Facilities land use
Facilities land use (uso dotacional) is the use that Spanish town planning reserves for public facilities and services: schools, health centres, cultural, sports or service buildings. Whether a colegio mayor or a student residence fits on that land, or on residential land, is decided by each municipality's plan.
Also known asuso dotacional · public facilities zoning · community facilities use · private facilities use
Who decides
The national land act speaks of "public facilities", the land for roads, open spaces, green areas and facilities that is handed over to the authorities when land is developed (consolidated Land Act, art. 18.1.a), but it does not say what uses fit on a particular plot. That is set by planning, under each autonomous community's rules: the plan zones each plot, that is, assigns its uses and their intensity, and its planning rules define what counts as facilities use, whether public or private, and what activities it allows.
That is why the same residence can fit differently depending on the city. In Madrid, the General Plan places student residences under "community residence", a category of residential use, and the Plan Reside allows residences when it recovers listed buildings on private facilities plots (rules in Madrid). In Barcelona, facility housing with common spaces has its own bylaw, which only applies on land zoned for public facilities (rules in Catalonia).
Worth knowing
No single article settles it for the whole of Spain. Before buying or leasing a building for a residence or a colegio mayor (a Spanish hall of residence with a formative programme), you need to ask the town hall for the plot's zoning and check whether the intended use is allowed on it: the activity licence depends on that, and with it, the opening.
Sources
Related terms
- Colegio mayorA colegio mayor is a Spanish hall of residence with a formative programme, integrated into a university: it houses university students and runs cultural and scientific activities for their all-round education. The LOSU defines it as a university institution that only non-profit entities may run or promote.
- Activity licence (licencia de actividad)The licencia de actividad is the prior municipal licence to run a business from premises in Spain. Today it is the exception: Ley 12/2012 bans it for retail and the services in its annex up to 750 m², where a self-declaration is enough, and outside that annex the region and the town hall decide.