Mobilization in Basque Country against rise in housing prices

A demonstration is held in Bayonne on Saturday. Secondary residences and rented dwellings on Airbnb are accused of climbing rates, such as the recent arrival of Bordelais and Parisians.

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Drizzle in a Biarritz Automnal, a dozen “ALDA” bibs invest a studio by the sea: these environmental activists and altermondialists want to denounce a unreported tourist furnished in town hall, while the airbnb rentals must to be. “On the approximately 5,400 tourist furnished in the city, only 2,200 are declared, 3,200 are not”, count TXETX Etcheverry, one of the leaders of this movement (“change”, in Basque language). And denounce “a city where there are more housing than inhabitants, and where to stay at the year has become impossible”.

As two other operations in Bayonne (Pyrénées-Atlantiques) and Biarritz, it was peaceful and lasted only a few hours. But the Municipality Biarrote gave Airbnb until December 18, last deadline, to declare its rentals, which should curb the passage of housing rented to the year in casual logis.

Framing the tourist market

Real estate has become a major concern for those who live and try to find a roof in the Basque Country. Moreover, Saturday, November 20, a rally had to take place in Bayonne on the appeal of a collective of social, union, political, associative, personalities and elected officials. These leaders hope that parliamentarians and the public authorities change the game. MPs (modem) Florence Lasserre and Vincent BRU want to make an amendment to the law under discussion on decentralization (called “3DS”) so that communities, in the stretched areas, such as the Basque Country, but also elsewhere, can intervene By framing the rents and the market for furnished tourist.

The littoral first, from Bayonne to Hendaye, has fever. But also more and more inside the land. Prices flame when there is an offer, construction programs, particularly social, face the scarcity of land available. And this situation is the preservation of agricultural areas as well as ecological equilibriums.

The numbers speak for themselves: the agglomeration community of the Basque country counted at its birth, in January 2017, some 200,000 homes, but fewer than three quarters were used to live year-round. 42 238 were secondary residences, 11,930 were vacant. For decades, the region has been facing an imbalance of housing: second homes count for 40% of homes in Biarritz, 45% in Saint-Jean-de-Luz, and most are occupied one to two months in the year . They are 50,000 throughout this territory, not counting purchases during and after the pandemic of COVID-19.

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/Media reports.