The challenges of automation and artificial intelligence in the field of housing and urban planning

On May 5, 2026, the Barcelona Chair of Housing Studies (CBEH) organized a hybrid conference at the Faculty of Law of the University of Barcelona entitled “Habitatge, Urbanisme i Automatització: Reptes de la Intel·ligència Artificial”.

The event was inaugurated by the Dean of the Faculty of Law, Dr. Andreu Olesti, who highlighted the conjunction, within the conference, between the academic perspective and the more practical and managerial perspective, as well as the intersection of two hot, current, multifaceted and controversial topics: artificial intelligence and housing.

Following these opening remarks, Dr. Juli Ponce Solé, co-director of the Chair and Professor of Administrative Law at the Faculty of Law of the University of Barcelona, first explained what the Chair is and what it does. The Chair is composed of four large public universities in the metropolitan area of Barcelona and two institutional partners: the Government of Catalonia and the Barcelona City Council. In this regard, he emphasized its public service vocation, its transdisciplinarity (with 78 members from different scientific fields: Anthropology, Sociology, Political Science, Law, Economics, among others) and its high level of internationalization as a member of the ENHR.

Next, Ponce introduced the speakers, offered reflections on the advantages, risks, and costs of AI, and thanked attendees for the large number of registrations (more than 200 people in online and in-person formats), as well as the attendance and interest of those present in the room.

The first presentation was given by Mr. Juan Carlos Álvarez Rodríguez, General Director of Building for the Madrid City Council, who explained the MADRIDdbp (Digital Building Permit) project.

He commented that Madrid anticipates a population growth of 100,000 people per year in the coming years, with an estimated supply of 171,000 new homes over ten years. Faced with this challenge, and in order to streamline the exercise of authorizing urban functions, the City Council has in recent years promoted public procurement of innovation to automate the granting of building permits using the BIM (Building Information Modeling) methodology.

The recently awarded project will enable the automatic validation of essential urban planning parameters (buildability, occupation, height, etc.) based on BIM models, reducing administrative review time (from about 20 hours to just 5 hours in the pilot tests that have been carried out) in the permit granting or denial procedure, without excluding the possibility of complementing the planned semi-automation with the use of AI. Mr. Álvarez stressed that the key to this extremely interesting and pioneering project is not only the technology, but also the organizational and cultural change of the administration, team training, simplification of procedures, and public-private collaboration to improve administrative functioning.

The second presentation was given by Dr. Clàudia Gimeno Fernández, professor at the Faculty of Law of the University of Valencia, who discussed the environmental and territorial impacts of data processing centers (DPC) or data centers. She emphasized that the cloud is not abstract, but rather requires massive physical infrastructure: hyperscale centers, electrical substations, cooling systems, fiber optic networks… This infrastructure currently consumes enormous amounts of water and electricity; for example, in Ireland it already represents 20% of electricity consumption, and in the Valencia region, some industrial parks are approaching saturation.

Gimeno criticized the lack of transparency of technology companies (shielded by EU regulations from revealing consumption data for this infrastructure) and warned about the inadequate urban planning treatment of these facilities, which are often located through the approval of specific regional projects, with little prior territorial planning. She called for rigorous environmental assessment, criteria to prioritize human water consumption, better planning of electrical networks, and greater citizen participation.

In the final part of the conference, a round table was formed, moderated by Dr. Montserrat Pareja-Eastaway, co-director of the Barcelona Chair of Housing Studies, president of the European Network for Housing Research, and professor at the Faculty of Economics and Business of the University of Barcelona. The round table featured the intervention of Ms. Miriam Alvarado, Director of Technology and Digital Transformation Services for Infrastructure and Urban Planning at Barcelona City Council.

Ms. Alvarado presented Barcelona’s municipal strategy, within which she discussed the Bloomberg Philanthropies Mayors Challenge, won by Barcelona to scale the Renovation as a Service (RaaS) project. RaaS is a hybrid, online and in-person service that aims to accelerate the rehabilitation of the city’s housing stock. The central axis of the project is the Re-Habita platform, where communities will find all the necessary tools and support to renovate their homes: they can consult technical information about the building, the costs of a possible renovation, the financing available, as well as the necessary documents for the procedures. The service will also have a chatbot for citizens to interact with and will incorporate the possibility of monitoring the administrative process, so that applicants are always informed about the status of their file and the next steps. In addition, it will be complemented by in-person assistance at the city’s Rehabilitation Offices to facilitate access to the platform for those experiencing the digital divide.

On the other hand, Ms. Alvarado acknowledged the challenge of accompanying digitalization without creating a digital divide and of making public procurement compatible with the speed of technological innovation.

During the discussion among the round table members, the need for collaboration between public administrations was debated. Likewise, it was highlighted that automation increases the likelihood of reducing administrative discretion and strengthening legal certainty, but also that the energy and environmental costs generated by AI must be planned for and managed.

The conference ended with concluding remarks by Dr. Juli Ponce, who emphasized the possible cross-fertilization of experiences between cities, despite existing differences, due to similar legal requirements, and the importance of not losing sight of the right balance between innovation and sustainability. He again thanked the attendees and the participation of the speakers, noting that the round table had brought together an architect (Mr. Álvarez), an engineer (Ms. Alvarado), a jurist (Dr. Gimeno), and an economist (the moderator, Dr. Pareja), thus evidencing the necessary transdisciplinarity to address the technological, environmental, economic, and social challenges related to housing and urban planning discussed during the conference.