Danielle Milon repeats it with a touch of emphasis: in her eyes as mayor (DVD), Cassis is “the most beautiful city“. Tourists may detract from the name of the town (that famous final “s”), but they flock there every summer by the tens of thousands. This attractiveness has been accompanied by the explosion in the number of furnished tourist accommodation: they were “368 in 2009, 1,300 today, including 950 second homesexplains the chosen one. Some owners own up to 13 properties! It became a business.“However, at the same time, Cassis lost 1,000 inhabitants, or 1/8th of its population:”It's huge.“It is very difficult to find accommodation there,”or we rent you from October to May and you have to leave in the summer“. At 7,552 euros per m², it is true that its real estate portfolio is today the most expensive in Bouches-du-Rhône.
The hatchet is dug up
Behind these figures emerges a future that frightens the elected official: that of a village reduced to a setting, where the “schools, public services, jobs disappear. Saint-Tropez is beautiful, but I don't want that here ” For three years, she has dug up the ax of “guerre” against Airbnb and its largest investors. Objective: “to block“the expansion of seasonal rentals, bringing the number back to a point of balance”let's say 500 maximum“. The town hall has already increased the municipal share of the housing tax on second homes, made the registration of furnished accommodation compulsory, and now combines the authorization with compensation – after six years – by placing on the market for a long-term rental property Although according to her too late, the new legislation “.goes in the right direction, with the possibility of imposing fines on offenders: you have to know how to take out the stick“.
