Increasingly high house prices prevent students and workers from finding accommodation. While there are 15 thousand private apartments intended for tourists who occupy them for a few days or for short periods. Councilor Maran: “Companies that do it for work or those who have several houses know that they are the target of this initiative”
In the absence of an ad hoc national standard, too Milano as Venice wants to launch one tightened on short-term rentals. The commissioner of the Town Hall, Pierfrancesco Maran, appealed to the government to allow a measure to be applied in the city that severely limits the maximum number of days of tourist rental. Not so much for the individual owners who rent a house but for the platforms and the companies that have created a business on this, such as Airbnb.
Expensive rents have become a hot topic in Milan, with increasingly high house prices often preventing a students and workers to find accommodation in cities where the population is increasing, after a contraction due to the period of Covid. While there is a shortage of affordable rental apartments, there are 15,000 private apartments for tourists that occupy them for a few days or for short periods. “We don’t want to go against the small owner who has a single 50 square meter apartment for rent, but some regulation on short-term rentals needs to be done – said the mayor Joseph Sala during the Forum dell’Abitare where the Municipality presents its strategy on housing for the next few years – because right now there are too many apartments being taken away from those who want to live in Milan instead, and not just five days during the Salone del Mobile ”.
In the city, rents have grown by more than 40% in seven years wages grew by only 5% so “there is a theme. We are presenting a range of initiatives to be implemented within three years and the first thing we are asking, since we cannot do it alone, but we need the authorization of the State, is to do exactly as in Venice which is the only city in Italy which by law can make a regulation on tourist rentals. We want this possibility to be allowed in Milan too, protecting small homeowners”, added Maran. “Companies that do it for work or who have several houses know that it is target of this initiative”, explains Maran. The aim is to protect middle-class workers and students who are struggling to find affordable housing. Milan is also a university city and out of over 200,000 students, a significant part (33.6%) is made up of non-residents.
The Municipality goes beyond short-term rentals for tourism and is also evaluating whether it is possible to put a ceiling on the growth of rents in general on the model of what Paris is already doing. “Barcelona and Berlin also did it but then the provision was declared unconstitutional – explains Maran -. I say let’s discuss it, it doesn’t have to be a permanent measure but it could make sense for two or three years, we want to open up a debate ”.