On the Basque coast, the construction of second homes is prohibited in certain municipalities

In some coastal towns in the Basque Country, victims of a surge in housing prices, the construction of houses intended to serve as second homes will now be prohibited, following the vote by local elected officials on a new urban planning measure.

At a community council meeting held on Saturday in Bayonne, elected officials from the Basque Country urban community voted on a new rule applicable to the inter-municipal local urban planning plan (PLUi) of five coastal municipalities, located in an area said to be strained in terms of housing, as reported by the newspaper Sud Ouest.

According to the INSEE, second homes now represent 21% of the property market in the Basque Country, and up to 50% in certain coastal towns.

In Biarritz, Bayonne, Anglet, Bidart and Boucau, 1.000 hectares of urban areas will now be reserved for the production of primary residence housing "exclusively".

This rule is based on the Echaniz/Le Meur law passed in November 2024. It provides for the delimitation of sectors for exclusive use of primary residences, provided that the municipality applies the annual tax on vacant housing or that the share of secondary residences is greater than 20% of the stock.

In Anglet, a town of more than 40.000 inhabitants which must produce 350 housing units per year, "even though the rate of secondary housing is 15%", the mayor Claude Olive (LR) considers it important "to have total control" of what will be done in future projects.

This measure, which had not yet been taken at the level of a group of municipalities, adds to others voted in recent years in an attempt to counter "the surge in prices and the growing difficulty of finding decent housing in the Basque Country", as highlighted by the vice-president of the agglomeration, Roland Hirigoyen, during the vote on Saturday.

Since March 2023, a compensation measure applied to 24 coastal municipalities and surrounding areas requires owners to offer, in the same town and with an equivalent surface area, a property on the year-round rental market to compensate for accommodation converted into furnished tourist accommodation. Last November, the rent cap also came into effect in these same municipalities.

In Chamonix (Haute-Savoie), Mayor Éric Fournier (UDI) had already passed a local urban planning scheme (PLU) in March, banning the construction of new second homes, which already represent 70% of housing in this town of 9.000 inhabitants and the 5th most expensive mountain sports resort in France.