Short-term rentals, the Council gives green light to municipal limits

Green light from the Constitutional Court for a law that aims to limit the short-term rental phenomenon. This is the meaning of the sentence with which the Constitutional Court rejected the government's appeal against the Tuscan regional law on tourism, which also contemplates measures to contain tourist rentals. In this sector, Tuscany was the forerunner of other interventions that arrived in the rest of Italy.

The Consulta has declared unfounded the questions of legitimacy raised by the government last March. Among the disputed regulations is the one that provides for the possibility for hotels to associate in the management, as an increase in their accommodation capacity and within the limits of 40 per cent thereof, residential real estate units in their possession, located within two hundred metres, but gives municipalities the power to establish a lower percentage. According to the Court, the contested rule confirms the general municipal function of regulating the settlements on its territory and is without prejudice to the possibility for the individual municipality to temper the expansion of hotel activities, taking into account the needs of its territory.

Above all, however, the Court acknowledged the legitimacy of the classification of non-hotel accommodation activities in real estate units 'having, for town planning purposes, a touristic-receptive use, excluding those having a residential use'. According to the judgement, 'if a property is used in a stable and organised manner as a non-hotel accommodation facility, the provision of tourist accommodation use cannot be considered unreasonable'.

The Court also declared unfounded the questions concerning the rules according to which non-hotel tourist accommodation facilities with the characteristics of a civil dwelling must be managed 'in an entrepreneurial form'. According to the Court, "the obligation to manage in an entrepreneurial form is a condition relating to the way in which the accommodation facility is operated, compliance with which is necessary in order to be able to manage a classified facility. The rules establishing such an obligation, therefore, are extraneous to the civil order and fall within the sphere of tourism, which falls within the full competence of the region'.

Finally, the Court declared unfounded the questions on Article 59, concerning short tourist rentals. According to this provision, municipalities with a high density of tourism and provincial capitals 'may, by their own regulations, identify zones or areas in which to define specific criteria and limits for the carrying out, for tourist purposes, of short-term rental activities'. Article 59, according to the Court, 'dictates an administrative discipline that predominantly intersects the subjects of territorial government and tourism, as it provides for a municipal regulatory power'. Therefore, it is in the full competence of the Region.