And when their shops have no customers and the streets are empty of tourists, well, tough titties said the kittie. (PS - 'lets' in proper English are what we call rentals. Duh) Housing activists in Lisbon are to hand over a petition, signed by more than 6,600 residents, calling on city officials to agree to hold a binding referendum on banning tourist lets in residential blocks.
The effort, months in the making, is aimed at prompting decisive action in a city where the cost of housing has drastically outpaced local salaries. “Short-term rentals take most of the housing space in Lisbon’s historic centre,” said Raquel Antunes, a member the group Movement for a Housing Referendum. “We need to put the brakes on this.” The rest of this foolishness is here.
Portugal and Spain (especially Barcelona) are severely impacted by a lack of rentals due to tourist lets. Because of this, locals can't afford to live in their own cities. So I can understand why locals are doing this. It may be self destructive, but the issue is complicated.
ReplyDeleteSane people would build NEW housing for the locals outside of the tourist centers and leave the medieval apartments to the tourists.
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