Bastia joins the Corsican municipalities which want to condition access to property on five years of residence on the island. A politically explosive measure, supposed to protect residents from real estate speculation.
There nationalist majority of Bastia adopted a deliberation in favor of a resident status which would reserve access to the property for people with five years of presence on the island. A measure assumed as a lever against real estate speculation, but whose current illegality is recognized even by its promoters. Behind the housing crisisa question arises: can we protect residents by restricting the purchasing freedom of others?
Five years of residence to be able to buy
Should we have lived five years in Corsica to have the right to buy housing there ? This is the principle defended by the municipal majority of Bastiawho approved on Thursday October 8 a deliberation in favor ofestablishment of a resident status.
Bastia, the second city on the island, which has around 47,000 inhabitants, joins around thirty rural communities engaged in this approach. © La Méridionale
The device hears condition access to land and real estate ownership on a prior duration of residence on the island. For its defenders, the goal is to curb speculation and allow residents to find housing in a market where tourist pressure and second homes complicate access to year-round housing.
According to the figures put forward in the deliberation, the second homes represent more than a third of the Corsican housing stockcompared to about 9% nationally. Under these conditions, competition between permanent residents, investors and buyers of vacation homes fuels lasting real estate tension.
A measure that its own promoters know is illegal
However, Gilles Simeoni, autonomous mayor of Bastia and former president of the Corsican communitydoes not claim that the device is legally applicable as it stands. Before elected officials, he himself recognized its illegal nature, in view of several decisions of the administrative justice system.
The precedent is indeed heavy. In February 2016, the Bastia administrative court canceled the deliberations of four municipalities of Corsica-du-Sud which sought to establish a resident status conditioning access to property on five years of main residence ; the judges having notably recalled that the fundamental rules governing access to property are the responsibility of the legislator, and not of the municipal councils.
The Bastia deliberation therefore does not establish, in itself, a effective ban on purchasing for new arrivals. Above all, it carries a political message: to develop the law to make possible, tomorrow, what is not possible today.
A household coming to work in Corsica, a family wishing to settle there or a buyer who chooses to settle there for retirement could be subject to a prior residence condition. Conversely, a person who has lived on the island for five years could satisfy this criterion, regardless of their income or their ability to participate in local life. In other words, length of residence does not constitute, in itself, an answer to the question of real estate purchasing power. It does not guarantee either that housing will be financially accessible to low-income households, nor that the available goods will be allocated to the main residence© IA / Laure Pophillat
Defenders of the status see this measure as a means of protect a population faced with real estate pressure and to preserve the possibility of living on its territory. Their opponents can, conversely, see it as a restriction of freedom of installation and a difference in treatment that is difficult to justify under the law.
A political signal before the debate on autonomy
For Gilles Simeonithe scope of the deliberation goes beyond the jurisdiction of the municipality. Bastia intends to support the mayors who demand a change in the law and weigh in on the discussions around the autonomy project for Corsica, expected to return to the parliamentary debate. The city also wants the status to take into account the Corsicans from the diaspora who no longer reside on the islandbut retain deep and lasting family, cultural, heritage or economic ties. This extension shows that the debate does not only concern the duration of physical presence: it also concerns the definition of belonging to the territory and the criteria allowing it to be recognized.
A first attempt had already been made in 2014 by a left-wing majority in the Corsican Assembly. The deliberations taken at the time by several municipalities were overturned by administrative justice. More than ten years later, nationalist elected officials are therefore putting the subject back on the table, with the same ambition to develop the legal framework.
