Voters decide on more money for affordable housing
The city of Zurich and its foundations should use more resources for affordable housing, believes the left-wing city and local council majority. There will be a referendum on November 24th.
A look at Zurich: Rents in this rapidly growing city have risen significantly in recent years.
“Affordable housing for Zurich” was the title of the popular initiative, to which two counter-proposals will now come before the people on November 24th. The SP has withdrawn the popular initiative. She had demanded that the city and its housing foundations buy more houses and land in order to create affordable housing. 250 million francs were earmarked for this.
The city and local council have developed a direct and an indirect counter-proposal. And once again it becomes clear that there is a housing policy divide running through Zurich’s party landscape. Now the voters decide.
City council financial competence limited
With the direct counter-proposal, the purchase of properties by the city and its non-profit – i.e. non-profit – housing foundations would be anchored as a goal in Zurich’s municipal code. To this extent, the initiative and the counterproposal coincide.
This is in addition to the goal decided in 2011 to increase the proportion of non-profit rental apartments in Zurich from a quarter to a third by 2050. A goal that the city has so far hardly come any closer to, despite various efforts, because… For-profit housing construction increased far more than non-profit housing. Meanwhile, Zurich has grown from around 390,000 to 450,000 residents since 2011 – reaching a new level population peak. The increasing demand for living space also caused rents to rise ever higher.
In contrast to the withdrawn initiative, with the counterproposal the city council is only allowed to issue loans and guarantees of up to 20 million francs for each property. When it comes to higher contributions, the voters decide.
This would mean that the goal of purchasing apartments by the city and its foundations would be re-established in the municipal code; However, the city council’s financial powers remained compatible with applicable higher-level law. The general rule in Zurich is that municipal contributions of 20 million francs or more must be submitted to the people.
300 million instead of 250 million
According to the counterproposal, the city council can grant guarantees of up to 20 million francs not only to municipal foundations, but also to cooperatives. Such guarantees serve to secure financial obligations. If a housing association that has received a guarantee from the city could no longer meet its financial obligations, the city would have to pay for it.
The city could give its public housing foundations loans of up to 20 million francs. These loans would be repayable and interest bearing.
There are currently four municipal housing foundations in Zurich: The Family Apartments Foundation (SFW, formerly the Apartments Foundation for Large Families); the Retirement Apartments Foundation (SAW); the PWG Foundation for the preservation of affordable residential and commercial spaces; and the Simply Living Foundation (SEW), which focuses on affordable and ecologically exemplary residential and commercial space.
Overall, the indirect counterproposal would increase the capital of these four foundations by 300 million francs. With the popular initiative it would have been 250 million and the SEW would not have been taken into account.
The foundation capital of the PWG and the SAW would increase by 100 million francs each, and that of the SFW and the SEW by 50 million each. The foundations would each have to manage 80 percent of the capital increase in such a way that the money remains as foundation capital; They could use 20 percent for additional growth measures or depreciation.
Center-right parties are against it
The SP, AL and the Greens, who together form the majority in the local council, are in favor of the counterproposal. The FDP, SVP, Mitte, EVP and GLP speak out against this.
Opponents argue that the counterproposal would not result in more apartments. Only the subsidies would be increased by 300 million francs. In addition, only last year voters approved 300 million francs for a housing fund, which has not yet been distributed.
In any case, the city already spends around 500 million francs a year on apartments. And good purchase options are rare. In the end, only a small part of the population benefits. In order to solve the housing problem, more apartments are needed.
The GLP also emphasizes that, in the long term, the municipal housing foundations and the Zurich properties must be merged into one organizational unit; today they would sometimes be competing for the same properties.
Left wants to “stop rent explosion”
The SP, as the largest party in the left-wing camp, counters: “In order to stop the rent explosion in the city of Zurich, more affordable apartments must be built and more apartments must be removed from speculation.”
The counter-proposals, consisting of anchoring apartment purchases as a goal in the municipal code and providing 300 million francs for the four foundations, are therefore important measures in the fight against the expansion of real estate companies and against rising rents.
Rising rents
Rents in the city of Zurich have risen by an average of 39 percent for newly concluded rental agreements since 2005. This comes from a published in 2023 Housing market report from the cantonal economics directorate out. For comparison: Canton-wide rents for new rental agreements rose by an average of 25 percent in the same period, in the agglomeration by 19 percent and in more rural, so-called peri-urban areas by 13 percent.
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