2024-01-14 03:30:00
The tightening of the permanent rental market caused by the general crisis of the sector and by tourism competition does not stop accumulating worrying reports and now an idea taken from European cities has been added that consists of legislate at the local level a limitation by zones, to favor the offer of housing to resident tenants.
The advance of temporary rentals caused a disproportionate increase in prices in Bariloche (as occurs in almost the entire country), in addition to an acute shortage, which pushed many people to resort to extreme solutions such as returning to their parents’ homes, joining acquaintances to share rent or even leaving the city.
The approach of Regulation by geographical areas is indicated in a recently published work by the Center for Metropolitan Studieswhich brings together the Metropolitan University for Education and Work, the National University of Hurlingham and the Arturo Jauretche University, under the direction of Matías Barroetaveña.
One of the members of the team that investigated the issue is local sociologist Tomás Guevara, who has been working on urbanization and habitat problems for years, and who joined the new municipal government a month ago.
Guevara explained that Zoning is one more alternative for State intervention in the supply of rentalsas well as the incentives and penalties applied through tax exemptions, to ensure greater availability of permanent rental housing and restrict their migration to tourist rentals.
He said that it is a resource that “other cities in the world are trying,” especially in Europe, and it consists of direct tourist rentals to the neighborhoods or sectors of the city suitable for this modality and prohibit or limit it in others. «The zoning follows a logic of three categories: an area where temporary rentals are prohibited, such as the neighborhoods of Alto de Bariloche, those of traditional residence for workers and the middle class. Another free zone, without restrictions, reserved for example for the city center, and a third with a ceiling, meaning that a percentage of the total stock of housing units is allowed for tourism and no more than that. Enabling a new one can only be done if there are casualties,” Guevara explained.
This last condition, in the case of Bariloche, could be imposed in areas where there is evident saturation of tourist rentals and serious problems for residents seeking permanent housing, for example the western neighborhoods.
Guevara said that this way of guiding the offer with legislative tools does not yet have precise evaluations of its results, “but it is where other tourist cities in the world are looking,” so Bariloche “should consider it.”
Bariloche with structural problems
The study provides illustrative details on the unequal battle faced by families seeking permanent rent in the face of the massive shift of homes, cabins and apartments to tourist locations, which intensified in the post-pandemic.
He even emphasizes that the national government’s Previaje program, although it could have had beneficial effects in terms of employment because it attracted record levels of tourists, It also contributed to aggravating the problems of access to housing.
The researchers specifically evaluated the Bariloche offer contained in the digital portal Airbnb, which leads the field of temporary rentals.
They emphasize that this city It is the second in the entire country with the most “active offers” in that network, after Buenos Aires and above other important tourist centers such as Mar del Plata. They highlighted that – unlike beach destinations – the decreasing tourist seasonality that is registered in this city, without such abrupt drops in autumn and spring, plays in favor of the owners who move to the temporary location.
According to official data, tourist rental apartments and houses They grew between 2006 and 2022 in Bariloche by 162%, at a much higher rate than traditional hotels.
The researchers also note that between October 2021 and August 2023 Bariloche’s offer on Airbnb “rose 230%” and in July of last year, according to the survey, “880 hosts” with properties offered in this city were registered on that platform.
They also evaluated the geographical distribution, according to which The center of Bariloche and the neighboring Belgrano neighborhood concentrate 37% of the supplyfollowed by Villa Catedral, Arelauquen and some western neighborhoods such as Melipal and Pinar de Festa.
A previous study, in which Guevara also participated, determined that Bariloche faces an increase in “tenancy” (according to the 2010 census it was 23.1% of the total population), and that there is an estimate of underoccupied or potentially vacant homes that exceeds 15%.
The lack of housing is also explained, according to the investigation, by the limited construction of new units with the participation of the State. The provincial housing institute IPPV, they emphasize, “it went from representing 3% of the provincial budget in 2019 to only 1% in 2023”and from 2000 to today “around 3,500 social housing units” were built in Bariloche, which is far from the number necessary to influence the market and offer an alternative to rentals.
The municipality also fails in that area because between 2009 and 2014 it generated 2,000 social lots with services (there is no more current data) and according to the study as of today «a significant percentage of those 2,000 households have not yet been able to settle in their new residencewhich prevents decompressing the urban location market.
Municipal and provincial intervention mechanisms
The report from the Metropolitan Studies Center, which is dated “January 2024”, states that “the housing situation in Bariloche has continued to worsen over the years” and that many of the possible solutions depend on the macroeconomic context. But he also points out that The provinces and municipalities have resources at their disposal “concomitantly with the Nation”, to promote the increase in the supply of rental housing.
Among the latter, he mentioned not only the construction of new houses (which would offer solutions in the medium term) but tax incentives and penalties, “as in any other sector”, stricter supervision of tourist rentals (which must have authorization) and regulation by zones, “as is in vogue in European cities”, which limit temporary rentals with quotas, authorizations, maximum days in which it can be rented to tourists “and high fines for non-compliance.”
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