After Paris, Saint-Malo (Ille-et-Vilaine), the Basque Country or Annecy, it is the turn of Bastia to put in place particularly restrictive regulations to stop the transformation of accommodation into furnished tourist accommodation. Thursday 1er June, a proposal for a by-law was to be submitted to the municipal council. It will establish a compensation system in the old center of the city: from March 2024, accommodation transformed into tourist rental will have to be compensated by the transformation of a business into housing.
Helpless in the face of the amplification of the Airbnb phenomenon, which diverts housing to the detriment of the population, more and more elected officials across France are opting, in dispersed order, for regulations at the local level. In the agglomeration of Bastia, the number of furnished tourist accommodation soared by almost 40% between 2019 and 2022. “We are short of accommodation, to rent or buy, and furnished tourist accommodation has driven up prices. In the old center, some properties are selling for twice as much as in 2019”justifies Pierre Savelli, the mayor of Bastia.
The announcement comes a week after the postponement of consideration of a cross-partisan bill (PPL) intended to regulate tourist rentals. While deputies from different sides had agreed on a text, elected representatives of the majority, judging that the PPL was not “unsuccessful” at this stage, have deferred the matter to October. “The text was postponed, under pressure from the MoDem, for political reasonsaffirms the socialist deputy Inaki Echaniz (Pyrénées-Atlantiques), who was to carry the bill with the macronist deputy Annaïg Le Meur (Finistère). Housing should be the government’s first subject, the subject of compromise, because everyone shares the observation that action must be taken. »
The disappointment was all the stronger as this postponement echoes another: the announcement of the proposals of the National Refoundation Council devoted to housing was postponed from May 9 to June 5. And this, despite an increasingly marked crisis: the rise in interest rates is curbing home ownership, the rental market is losing its fluidity, building permits and housing starts are falling, including in social housing, where the queue reaches a record 2.4 million households.
“Reverse taxation”
So, tired of waiting for arbitration, associations, local elected officials and parliamentarians are getting organized. Bringing together around twenty local networks born in Saint-Malo, Chamonix (Haute-Savoie), Lorient (Morbihan), Arcachon (Gironde) or Dieppe (Seine-Maritime), a national citizen collective presented, on Wednesday May 31, its proposals for restrict tourist accommodation. Among them, one “reverse taxation in favor of people who rent by the year”while income generated by seasonal rentals can benefit from a reduction of up to 71% of the amounts received. “These advantages encourage owners to rent furnished accommodation, especially since the price per night is much more advantageoussays Brigitte Cottet, of the Association of Residents of the Old Town of Annecy. With us, profitability is three to four times higher than accommodation rented for the year. »
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