Swiss Review 6/2019

Swiss Review / November 2019 / No.6 23 Corehendi beaqui est rehe nissim et peror aboria nonsequia quas exeri doluptati qui debis magnim es- tioreru fair. Switzerland has a tenant law sys- tem that is widely accepted. How is the percentage of homeowners evolving? It’s changing very slowly because few rental properties are put up for sale. By contrast, the sale of rental apart- ments in the United Kingdom be- tween 1980 and 1990 brought about a 10% rise in home ownership. We could just build real estate for sale, but with newbuilds generating only a 1 % growth in housing a year, even that would only trigger a very small increase in homeowners. What do you think of the “More affordable housing” initiative? The part about having access to your own home is already in the Constitu- tion. The real issue is making 10% of new buildings for social housing by law. The other factor is the right of pre-emption, which would enable a municipality to have first refusal on buying a property, which it could then give to a cooperative or founda- tion. This right already exists in some cantons. Housing or residents’ cooperatives offer a type of home ownership and guarantee stable and reasonable rents. Why is this system, which only applies to 6 % of homes in Switzerland, not more widespread? Residents’ cooperatives in Zurich are at 25 %, the highest in Switzerland. But you have to first build the hous- ing if you want to offer it! Faced with competition from the private sector, cooperatives come second when buying land. The initiative would enable some land to be allo- cated to affordable housing in the form of social or cooperative real es- tate. Everyday life in Switzerland: moving from one rental apartment to another. Photo: Keystone 1) “Locataire ou propriétaire ? Enjeux et mythes de l’accession à la propriété en Suisse” (To own or to buy ? Implications and myths of property ownership in Switzerland). This book provides an overview of a survey conducted by the authors and the environmental research institute at EPFL. 2) The members of housing cooperatives each hold a small share of the registered capital, but are still tenants. Residents’ cooperatives are similar to a freehold apartment. Each member owns part of the property (their apartment). The former are less common, but represent more apartments than residents’ cooperatives. Website of the popular initiative committee: logements-abordables.ch Opposing position (German): ogy.de/hev-kritik