Short-term rentals, tightening immediately extended to Emilia-Romagna
After the Constitutional Court ruling on Tuscany comes a new regional law. New use and more powers for municipalities introduced
Key points
The squeeze on short-term rentals is advancing. Twenty-four hours were enough, after the historic Constitutional Court ruling that gave the green light to regional laws limiting the phenomenon of tourist rentals, and already local governments are moving to regulate the phenomenon.
The Law
The Emilia-Romagna Regional Council yesterday approved the law regulating the rules for this type of activity. The text, proposed by the regional council, passed with the vote in favour of the PD, Avs, Civics and the 5 Star Movement and the vote against of Fdi, Forza Italia, Civic Network and the League. It is a law whose process had, clearly, already begun some time ago but which, ideally, has a strong connection with both Tuscany's law (the subject of the rejected constitutional challenge) and the Consulta's ruling.
The objective," say the regional councillor for tourism, Roberta Frisoni, and the regional councillor for housing, Giovanni Paglia, "is to provide a regulatory framework that allows municipalities, according to their different needs, to act more effectively, protecting the right to housing, but also preserving the tourist vocation of the territories.
What's Changing
The text approved yesterday, in fact, takes up two concepts at the heart of the ruling and already applied precisely in Tuscany. Article 4, in fact, introduces the destination of urban use for short-term rental: this is the key novelty of the law. In other words, units that are rented out under this formula will have to change their residential use, with a potential impact on marketability and a high barrier to entry in administrative terms. By changing use, the units will then have to comply with a long list of requirements (of safety, hygiene, energy efficiency and conformity of installations) but, above all, they will be placed under the lens of the municipalities, which will have the power to impose urban limits.
"The law goes on to say that 'municipalities can identify, in their urban planning tools, specific areas of the municipal territory in which the establishment of short-term rental use is permitted or subject to compliance with specific conditions'. Hence, no longer free growth of the phenomenon, but the possibility for mayors to set limitations, even very strong ones, by monitoring the urbanistic destinations of the properties present on the territory. The administrations, thanks to this new mechanism, will be able to 'establish, for each area, the maximum percentage of residential property units that can be destined for short-term rental'.
