The elected officials of the Basque Country voted this Saturday an “adjustment” of the compensation measure intended to fight against the expansion of furnished tourist accommodation, of which the Airbnb platform is the symbol, and which had been suspended more than a year ago. one month by the Administrative Court of Pau.
We are going to round off the angles where the judge considers that we should round them off, summarizes the president of the Basque Country urban community, Jean-Ren Etchegaray.
At the beginning of June, the administrative court, seized by a group of 50 applicants, owners and concierge companies, had raised serious doubts as to the legality of this measure voted on March 5.
The rules have therefore been reviewed and corrected on several points, in the light of the observations made by the judges. The date of entry into force has been postponed to March 1, 2023 to allow additional time for legal persons to reorganize their activity.
The compensation measure, which was to come into force on June 1 before being revoked, obliges owners to produce, in the same city and with an equivalent surface area, a property on the rental market year-round to compensate for housing transformed into furnished sightseeing. It must apply to 24 municipalities in the Basque Country in a so-called tense zone.
This Saturday, the compensation rules were clarified, to introduce better proportionality, given the scarcity or even non-existence of premises eligible for compensation, underlined by the judges.
Landlords can buy trading rights from others, to reclaim premises. It was already in the previous regulations but only in an appendix, underlines Daniel Olomendy, vice-president of the intercommunality.
The regulations also allow ground floor premises, hitherto excluded from the framework, to be converted, as long as their windows do not overlook the public domain.
In the crowd, the Union of Tourist Furnished Rental Companies (ULMT) announced on Saturday that it would take legal action against this new deliberation. What is unacceptable is to be the sole target of negligence in housing policy in the Basque Country for more than thirty years, comments the ULMT, which considers the measure illusory.
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The only consequences will be the simple return to the holiday residence and forced sales of people who will not be able to keep their property.
A re-suspension will be filed with the administrative court within two months, says Me Victor Steinberg, lawyer for the ULMT and other applicants, who also refers to purely cosmetic legal changes.
We regret the lack of consultation as well as the haste with which this new text was adopted, adds the lawyer.
Since 2016, a 130% increase in tourist accommodation rentals has been observed, going from 7,150 active advertisements in 2016 to 16,440 in 2020, according to the Basque urban area, on the basis of figures given by the Agence d’urbanisme Atlantique et Pyrenees (Audap).