Methodology
Every project on this site links to its official source. This page explains where the data comes from, how it is classified and what it does not cover.
Sources
- Road closures and street works, Málaga city council open data portal (datosabiertos.malaga.eu). Checked daily. We keep the history: when a works entry is missing from two checks in a row, or after its end date, we treat it as finished.
- Official street map (callejero, open data): streets, blocks, house numbers, plots, neighbourhoods and districts. Used to draw each project on its street section or exact plot. Updated monthly.
- Planning notices from the city planning office (urbanismo.malaga.eu): detailed studies, special and partial plans, city plan amendments and agreements, with their approval dates. Weekly.
- City council press releases (malaga.eu), online archive since November 2022 plus 2019 to 2022 copies recovered from the Internet Archive. Each release is read once with the help of an AI assistant to extract structured fields (street, number, homes, stage, developer, budget). The text we publish is generated from those fields with templates, and every page links the original release. New releases are read in a manual step; until then they show as pending on the data status page.
- Spanish Cadastre (Catastro), INSPIRE buildings for Málaga: exact footprint, use, homes, floors and year of construction. A building with a construction year of 2019 or later is considered finished. Monthly.
- Junta de Andalucía, minutes of the Málaga provincial heritage commission: works in the historic centre or next to protected monuments. Weekly.
- Major projects (metro, port, parks, facilities) reviewed by hand with the source cited on each page and the date it was last checked, and site licence signs photographed on the street (companies only, never people's names).
Status
Each project's status is computed only from dated evidence and is never guessed. When a building licence was granted in the last 36 months and no source confirms the start, the status is “Licence granted · start not confirmed”. It only becomes “No news since” when there is no official step in 18 months and no recent licence either. On the map and in the filters statuses are grouped in four: Under way, Coming soon (upcoming, licence granted and approved), In process (in process and announced) and Other.
| Announced | Only an announcement or proposal. No funding, tender, licence or formal step yet. |
|---|---|
| In process | An official step is under way: initial approval, public consultation, licence applied for or heritage review. |
| Approved | Final planning approval or contract approved. Works have not started. |
| Licence granted | A building licence was granted in the last 36 months, but no source confirms yet that works have started. |
| Starting soon | Tendered or awarded, or a start date has been announced. |
| Under construction | Works have started and there is no record that they have finished. |
| Finished | The Catastro registers the building, the works left the city list, or the council announced completion. |
| On hold | The source says it has stopped. |
| Cancelled | The source says it has been cancelled. |
| No news | No official news for more than 18 months and no licence granted in the last 36 months. |
Location
We only draw exact places: the affected street section, the cadastral plot or the building footprint. When the source gives no exact address but names an official barrio, the project is shown in that barrio as “Approximate location”, hatched instead of a plot, and counts in “Nearby” flagged as approximate. We never infer a street. If it names no barrio either, it is listed with the note “No exact location published” and is not drawn. Catastro addresses are the nearest official house number and are shown as “near”.
Privacy
Only legal entities and public bodies are named. When a developer is a private individual we show “Private individual (not published)”. Representatives, ID numbers, e-mails and phone numbers are always removed (art. 15 Ley 19/2013 and GDPR).
What we cover and what we do not
We cover the city's works on public roads, published urban planning, major building licences known from press releases and site signs, and major projects. We do not cover:
- The city planning office does not publish its list of building licences. We learn about licences from press releases, site signs and minutes. A freedom-of-information request for the full list since 2019 has been prepared.
- Licences for single houses and minor works are not published in any open source.
- Many planning documents cover a whole sector rather than an address: they are listed but not drawn.
- The road closures list only includes works that occupy the street.
- Objection periods are only shown when the source states both dates; otherwise we link the official notice.
Home page figures
- Projects under way: projects with status “Under way”, that is, an official source says works have started and none says they have finished.
- Homes in projects with works under way: the sum of the published homes of those projects. In large sectors the works under way may still be the urbanisation, not the buildings: that is why we do not call it “homes under construction”. A building inside a residential sector under way in the same barrio is not added again: its homes are already in the sector total.
- With official news in 7 days: projects whose newest official step (a decision, a notice, a licence, a start) is dated in the last 7 days. A list or photo showing the project again does not count. What we added to the map this week with older official steps is shown separately in “This week's news”.
- An automated test recomputes these figures from the published data at every build.
Order by relevance
The city list puts first what is under way or starts within the next 12 months, then what starts later, and last what is only being processed; within each group it sorts by a fixed score. Mi zona is sorted by distance. Points: homes (1 or more: 8; 10 or more: 18; 50 or more: 30; 200 or more: 40), budget (€200,000: 6; €1M: 14; €5M: 22; €20M: 30), floors (3: 4; 6: 9; 12: 15), published duration (90 days: 4; 1 year: 8; 2 years: 12), street closed to traffic (15) and major public project (25). Street works or licences with no homes, no closure and under 10 points are grouped as “Minor works”.
Impact level (Mi zona and the report)
High: a relevant project (30 points or more) under way or about to start within 150 m, a street closure within 150 m, or 3 or more projects under way or about to start within 300 m. Medium: any other non-minor project under way or about to start in the radius, or a project in process with 50 or more homes within 300 m. Low: the rest. The reasons shown come from the same rules. The paid report counts and lists only projects with a source that can be opened.
Source licences
Data from Málaga city council (open data portal), the city planning office, the Spanish Cadastre (CC BY 4.0) and the Junta de Andalucía. Base map by OpenFreeMap, © OpenMapTiles, data © OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL).
For information only. Not an official record: always check the source before making decisions.