How cities around the globe fight rising rents

 | Updated: Jun 18, 2019, 01:29 PM IST

Rentals across the world are tightly regulated; Berlin has become the latest anti-gentrification battleground, with authorities poised to freeze rents for five years in a bid to halt skyrocketing costs.

Other major cities have taken different approaches: Here is an overview of some of them.

Berlin's Victory Column

Berlin has become the latest anti-gentrification battleground, with authorities poised Tuesday to freeze rents for five years in a bid to halt skyrocketing costs.

(Photograph:AFP)

Statue of Liberty in New York

Lawmakers in New York state last Friday passed a bill aimed at protecting lower-income families from skyrocketing rents.

The new law eliminates rules that allowed building owners to increase the rent when an apartment changed hands.

It will also prevent new tenants from being charged for extensive renovations via increased rents, and help keep owners from reducing the number of rent-controlled apartments.

Since 1994, about 300,000 rent-controlled apartments have vanished in the city of New York alone, according to official figures.

That has forced low-income and even middle-class families to move, fuelling gentrification of the Big Apple, one of the world's top 10 most expensive cities.

The new law should directly affect about 2.4 million New Yorkers, out of a population of roughly 8.5 million, who live in close to one million rent-controlled apartments.

(Photograph:AFP)

Johann Strauß monument, Vienna

The Austrian city boasts the title of the "capital with the most affordable housing" thanks to its large social property stock.

Among its 1.9 million inhabitants, six in 10 live in apartments owned by the city or by non-profit developers, something that helps break rent rises.

The city keeps the qualifying cap for social housing high, 3,317 euros $3,728 on a 14-month basis for an individual and 6,245 euros for a family of four, meaning such property remains within reach for middle-class families.

As such apartments can be passed on to family members, critics say the cap fails to take into account changes in revenues or family structures.
 

(Photograph:AFP)

La Sagrada Familia in Barcelona

Rentals have shot up by 35 per cent since 2010 partly due to the proliferation of the lucrative holiday let apartments driven by Airbnb in the Spanish seaside city.

In a bid to curb runaway rates, the city has forced thousands of short-let apartment owners without tourist licences to halt their businesses. It has also stopped issuing new licences for such short-term lets.

The authorities have also hired people to comb through Airbnb ads to identify those who fall foul of the law.

(Photograph:AFP)
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Eiffel Tower of Paris

The French capital will start applying a rent cap from July 1, bringing back a measure that had already been deployed between 2015 and 2017.

The limit comes on top of another measure in place for several years that restrict sharp rent hikes when apartments change hands between tenants.

In a bid to ward off pressure put on housing by Airbnb, the city is also seeking to ban such short-term lets in the city centre.

(Photograph:AFP)

Statue of King Gustav III, Stockholm

In Stockholm, the tightly regulated market has given rise to a black market where would-be tenants desperate to find an apartment either buy a lease with a cash top-up or sublet without the necessary permission.

In 2017, a government report found that one in four leases were obtained fraudulently.

To obtain one of the apartments in Sweden, those interested have to join a queue with a waiting list of as long as 20 years or win a draw much like a lottery.

A holder of such a lease can keep it for life and even exchange it for another apartment. But conditions for subletting are limited to military service or a foreign posting.

Other apartments are let by individual property owners, but only with the agreement of other owners in the building. Leases are however often short and non-transferable.

(Photograph:AFP)