Short-term rentals, also the Municipality of Rome studies the squeeze

Introduce a limit of nights per year. Activate planning restrictions, reducing crowding of tourist properties in certain districts. And pull the tax lever, for example through a heavier Imu. After the initiatives of Bologna and Florence, also the municipality of Rome is moving to regulate short-term rentals. Work is still in progress and will be completed by the end of the year, probably with a resolution of the Capitoline assembly. The first indications, however, draw a tightening on the way. A tightening that, moreover, had already been anticipated by the variant to the technical regulations of the Prg.

Councillor for Heritage and Housing Policies of the Municipality of Rome, Tobia Zevi, talks about this: "Last autumn an inter-departmental and inter-assessor's table was set up which, on the basis of a memorandum from the council, asked the offices to draw up a regulation on short rentals. Three departments were involved: Tourism, Urban Planning and Heritage with the respective chairmen of the Capitoline commissions of the same name and municipal councillors. The work started from the Memotef (Methods and models for economics, territory and finance) department of the Sapienza University of Rome, which analysed how short rentals are transforming cities and, at the same time, analysed the actions of other administrations around Europe. Data that serve as a basis for the upcoming regulation that will be submitted to the Capitoline Assembly.

'The first question we asked ourselves,' says the councillor, 'is whether a resolution can pass the challenges we expect for such an intervention. And whether there is indeed room to intervene. Our feeling is that there is margin. Although we bemoan the absence of a national regulation, which would be absolutely necessary, we welcome, on the other hand, the possibility of a European regulation on the subject'.

The aim of the Municipality of Rome is to limit the phenomenon, which especially in some areas of the city is reaching worrying levels. Thus, three possible paths are being considered. Says Zevi: 'First of all, we are working on saturation indices: that is, criteria that make it possible to assess the neighbourhoods or in some cases the complexes that have an excessive concentration of extra-hotel offer that compromises the possibility of a healthy neighbourhood life, which is instead made up of a mix of different things'. This is exactly what the Municipality of Bologna, for example, is doing: introducing a specific destination of use to better monitor short-rented properties and, then, limiting their concentration in certain areas, to prevent the amount of houses dedicated to the tourist offer from becoming excessive.

'The second track,' continues the councillor, 'concerns taxation. Let's imagine, for example, that incentives of various kinds could be envisaged for those who transform a house intended for short-term rent into an agreed rental, and here the newly created Social Housing Agency could play a fundamental role. Or we hypothesise a penalty in tax terms, for example on the Imu, for those who do the opposite operation'. Interventions on local taxes could also be considered. Finally, 'there is the track of the time cap, a limit on nights for this type of activity'. Moreover, this very limit of nights (annual or seasonal) is one of the first hypotheses made for the new European regulation. These,' Zevi concludes, 'are working tracks. We could use just one of them or all of them together to achieve the goal of limiting short-term rentals anyway'.