Zurich city parliament rejects SP housing initiative
Published: Wednesday, May 29th 2024, 21:00
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On Wednesday evening, Zurich's municipal council rejected the SP popular initiative "Affordable housing for Zurich". The city council's counter-proposal is likely to prevail, although the final vote will not take place for a few weeks.
The decision to reject the SP initiative was made by 63 votes to 46, with the SVP inadvertently voting with the SP and causing confusion. However, this did not change the result.
Even fellow campaigners on the left side of the council described the SP popular initiative as "unsuccessful". The AL even described the housing initiative as a "careless, populist rush job".
With its counter-proposal, the city council had saved what could be saved. One problem was that the SP wanted to grant the city council an unlimited license to spend money - which would hardly have been legally valid.
The city council's counter-proposal therefore includes a limit of CHF 20 million. Anything above this must be put to a popular vote.
The SP has already announced that it will withdraw its initiative in favor of this counter-proposal. It could live with this because the counter-proposal incorporates the key points of its initiative. Whether Parliament will support the counter-proposal will only become clear in a few weeks' time, however, when the matter comes before the Council again. It will first go to the drafting committee.
300 million for housing foundations
The people will have the final say, as both the SP initiative and the counter-proposal would require changes to the municipal regulations.
According to the counter-proposal, the city should in future provide guarantees and grant loans - similar to a bank. Foundations and cooperatives are to buy more houses in order to create affordable housing. Although this is already possible today, it should be enshrined in the municipal constitution.
The counter-proposal also includes a capital increase of CHF 300 million for several housing foundations. What is missing from the counter-proposal - and was still demanded by the SP initiative - are fixed growth targets for the foundations. The SP also wanted to write these into the municipal regulations, but the city council deemed this "inappropriate".
"Not a miracle cure"
Head of Finance Daniel Leupi (Greens) dampened hopes somewhat during the debate. "Even this counter-proposal will not be a miracle cure to satisfy the high demand for living space." But it would "make a contribution".
Both the SP initiative and the counter-proposal are opposed by the conservatives, who are, however, in a losing position given the majority in parliament.
"Pure show"
For the FDP, the SP initiative and the very similar counter-proposal are "pure show". If the left came to the conclusion that something was going wrong with housing policy, they could use their majorities in parliament and the city council to bring about a change. But nothing would happen.
The center, on the other hand, expressed doubts that more millions would really bring more apartments. Instead, liberal rules are needed and planning applications must be processed quickly, said Christian Traber.
There was also a double no from the SVP. Samuel Balsiger said that this was all symptom-fighting, with hundreds of millions of francs being wasted. "The main reason for rising rents is immigration," he continued. As long as this is not stopped, none of this will help.
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