The cities of the “Persianas Down”

In Damgana small coastal villa of the French Brittany, have begun to paint the blinds of red, blue or green, more colorful options than the white that has been traditionally used for the facades. “We send them painting” Recognize the mayorJean Marie-Labesse. That chromatic change may seem a minor issue, but says a lot about the challenges facing the town. If you have decided to give the blinds a more cheerful tone is because Damgan It is basically a town on vacation and many of its windows spend almost all year closed.

Giving a point of color to the blinds, the City Council intends (at least aesthetically) that Damgan does not seem what it really is: a town mired and a comatose state almost all year for the weight of the second residences.

A percentage: 74%. Damgan’s case is interesting because he tells us about a phenomenon that affects many other tourist cities, outside and within France: the “boom” of The second residence At the expense of habitual housing. In the Gala Villa, yes, the trend is especially pronounced. Le Parisien assures That 74% of the properties of the municipality are second residences, a percentage that came to 80% before the City Council took action on the matter.

From 1,900 to 30,000 inhabitants. In practice, this percentage translates into houses and more houses closed to lime and singing during most of the year, thousands of blinds descended in a molten to Blanco that the City Council wants to avoid. The data is eloquent. It is calculated that 4,000 homes of the municipality, 3,000 are second residences. Translated into inhabitants, that means that the town goes from just 1,900 residents of winter to 30,000 during July and August.

Why is it important? Because Damgan leaves a barbaric example of something else: how the imbalance between seasonal and stable housing ends up taking its toll to the city, even threatening some of its basic services, such as schools. Labesse remember For example, the year in which the Mayor’s Office (2014) assumed a single baby in Damgan and one of the school classes that the town ended on the tightrope. “It is a crucial issue for the people,” he insists.

Another front in which the weight of the holiday housing is felt is the real estate market. Le Parisien He has spoken For example with a 50 -year -old carpenter from the area that has just separated and fails to find a house. It has good income, but that does not help you much. “Workers cannot live here; they have to go 20 km, we are becoming a town for older people,” LIKE HERVÉ DU SOUICHof ‘Les Volets Ouverts’, an initiative that mediates so that the locals can stay in empty houses in the area.

Beyond Damgan. The Villa of the French Brittany is interesting for what it represents, but it is not a unique case. According to French Propertyin continental France there are about 3.2 million second residences, almost 10% of the real estate park. The vast majority are from French citizens, especially on the coast, although there are also between 80,000 and 90,000 that belong to British. In certain regions of the Mediterranean, such as Languedoc-Roussillon or Provence-Alpes-Costa Azul, holiday housing represents 14% of the stock.

Not much distance from Damgan are Carnac and Trinité, where the percentage of second residences is around 72%. And a good part of that house, the Parisian newspaper requires, only a few weeks are used. In Villard-de-Lansin Isère, two -thirds of homes and the percentage are even greater in some locality in the region. These data leave workers who seek stable accommodation, Recognize Labesse: “The problem is not so much the price and lack of offer.”

Beyond France. Nor is France a unique case. In London the second residences and empty houses are such a serious problem that the authorities already They seek to stop him through fiscal pressure. According to The data that the mayor’s office was driving in 2023, in the city there were “30,000 empty homes” for a long time, with a particularly high concentration at certain points, such as Kensington or Chelsea. Madison Trust Company also shows that there are certain US areas, such as Marinette-Ron Mountainin which More than 25% of residences are used seasonally or recreationally.

The phenomenon is well known in Spain. A sensitive part of the Ibiza and Formentera residential park, for example, are second residences. In 2023 Ibiza Diario needed That of the almost 86,000 properties of the Pitiusas, 6,200 were inhabited sporadically and 18,300 were empty. In some cases the photo is more complex, as in the town of Sant Joan, where 44% of the houses were considered not main. They are the cities of the blinds.

Image | Mairie de Damgan

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