From the Basque Country to Paris, wave of offensives against furnished tourist accommodation

Thursday, the City of Paris announced that it was going to prohibit, as part of its future Local Urbanism Plan (PLU), the creation of new tourist accommodation in areas plagued by "overtourism", where there is a lack of housing. all year.

“Entire sectors of Paris will be prohibited from the creation of new tourist accommodation because we consider that the offer is already very abundant and we are aiming for a spread and a balance of establishment in intramural Paris”, explained to the press. Emmanuel Grégoire, first deputy to the PS mayor of Paris.

"The challenge is simple, it is to try to regulate, even to curb the pressure of the market which reduces the stock of available housing for the benefit of permanent residents towards diverted uses", he added.

On Tuesday, four parliamentarians from all sides, elected from very touristic territories where accommodation is lacking, had detailed seven proposals for better regulating furnished tourist accommodation.

"What seriously concerns us is the flight, the transformation of permanent accommodation into tourist accommodation. It's really a huge wave, it's a tsunami," said Julien Bayou, EELV deputy.

"I typically have a company that is relocating today, because it is in a phase of strong growth and it cannot attract executives because they cannot find accommodation", added Christophe Plassard (Horizons) , elected in Royan (Charente-Maritime).

"Massive Prices"

“The prices are maddening, we arrive in situations where people, locals, cannot live on their territory”, affirmed the deputy Iñaki Echaniz (PS, Pyrénées-Atlantiques), citing caregivers “forced to sleep in their car during the summer because they are kicked out of their homes".

The latter was appointed co-rapporteur on Wednesday, with the Renaissance deputy from Finistère Annaïg Le Meur, of a bill which will be examined in mid-June in the National Assembly.

"We have a window of opportunity, we take it and we snatch what we have to snatch because for too long we have been saying that it is not enough, but we are not doing anything", explained Thursday Iñaki Echaniz, present alongside Emmanuel Grégoire, while recognizing that it will be necessary "to go even further", in particular by increasing taxation on second homes without penalizing year-round residents.

The text, which includes three measures, conditions the possibility of making tourist rental to the realization of an energy performance diagnosis, on the model of long-term rentals, except derogation.

The deputies also want to strengthen the competence of small tourist municipalities. In tense areas, they could make tourist rentals conditional on prior authorization from them, particularly in the event of a change in use of premises or accommodation. This is only possible today in cities with more than 200.000 inhabitants.

Finally, the text reduces the tax niche enjoyed by furnished tourist accommodation. A way to "rebalance the balance" between tourist and permanent accommodation, justifies Annaïg Le Meur to AFP, for whom "we cannot have tourism without also having active people who are staying".

Saint Malo and Annecy

Asked Thursday morning on BFM Business, the deputy director of Airbnb France Bertrand Burdet estimated that the regulations in France were already "very mature".

"At the European level, it is the most elaborate (...) Today the rules exist. Hundreds of thousands of French people rent their accommodation on Airbnb. The median income is 3.800 euros per year. This is a huge additional income in this period of inflation (...) we will remove this purchasing power", warned Mr. Burdet.

Besides Paris, some cities or intermunicipalities have already taken measures to regulate furnished tourist accommodation. Saint-Malo and Annecy have thus established quotas by district.

At the beginning of March, justice authorized the Basque Country Agglomeration Community to establish a compensation mechanism: for each accommodation transformed into furnished tourist accommodation, it obliges the owners to produce, in the same city and with an equivalent surface area, a property on the year-round rental market.