What do the rue du Temple, rue de Turenne, rue des Gravilliers and rue du Château-Landon have in common?
All these Parisian streets host in their inner courtyard former workshops or commercial warehouses transformed - or in the process of being transformed - into furnished tourist short-term rentals.
Once occupied by wholesalers, locksmiths, jewelers and other scrap dealers, these business premises are selling like hot cakes for three times nothing.
"This is the case of wholesalers importing leather goods and knickknacks which constituted the single activity of entire sectors of the 3rd and 4th arrondissements", explains Gérard Simonet, president of the Vivre le Marais association.
Buyers, most often real estate professionals, holding companies or even investment funds, tear them away to divide their lots into apartments, which, once retyped at a lower cost, are quickly rented out on platforms. Airbnb or Sweet Inn type forms, a Franco-Israeli start-up which has made a specialty of renting commercial premises transformed into high-end short-term residences.
"This very discreet mode of operation has been spreading and prospering for several years", warns the defender of the Marais district, who estimates "at several hundred" the number of these operations in the capital.
Distorted Parisian districts
For the owners of commercial premises, this business is undoubtedly profitable in the heart of the City of Light.
Regulatory constraints are weak, when they are not simply bypassed.
Unlike housing for residential use, nothing is easier than transforming commercial premises - offices for example - into short-term tourist accommodation.
There is no need to respect the shortest duration (unlike a main residence which cannot be rented for more than 120 days per year), nor to change its use (as for second homes) and to respect a compensation rule (purchase of an equivalent area) ... Two steps are enough: file a prior declaration of work with the Town Hall - which systematically approves it if it is correctly completed - and register the property under its new allocation of "hotel accommodation Instead of “offices”.
"A lawless zone"
A real child's play, unlike the obstacle course of private landlords wishing to rent their accommodation!
“This lack of regulation creates a lawless area that too many professionals exploit by distorting the old and central districts of Paris, enraged Martine, co-owner at 20, rue des Gravilliers.
The work is carried out at a rapid pace to avoid any dispute and sometimes quite illegally.
Our building overlooking the courtyard with its long protected historic glass roof is being dismembered into several lots without any authorization, which is however compulsory in the Marais ”, protests the retiree.
In addition to town planning, it is a whole profession that fears for its future.
"It is a terrible unfair competition for hoteliers, especially the smallest ones," underlines Laurent Duc, president of the hotel branch of Umih, the main union of the hotel and restaurant industry which brings together more than 9,000 hotels, half of the national market.
These hotel accommodations are like little streams that surround us and drown us.
They are not subject to any regulations or standards in terms of sanitary hygiene, VAT or even fire ... They just have to buy a fire detector at 15 euros when we have to offer two emergency stairs and alarms everywhere and this is just one example, ”he annoys, sure that the recovery will be very difficult for the sector whose number of players is declining for the first time in its history.
"We are legally naked", laments the housing assistant
On the side of the town hall, anger is just as strong against "this phenomenon which has become problematic for two years".
“We tightened the screw with individuals who transformed their apartment into an underground hotel and now the smart ones are reporting with impunity on the commercial premises, fulminates Ian Brossat, the deputy mayor of Paris in charge of housing.
We cannot prevent this type of transformation, we are legally naked, we have alerted the government which has been promising us for more than two years a decree to regulate this practice, but how can we explain that it takes so long !?
», He gets angry.
Contacted, the Ministry of Housing insisted on "the editorial complexity" of this decree which must subject to authorization the change of assignment.
Currently being examined by the National Standards Assessment Council, the document must also obtain the green light from the State Council.
“Given these inherent delays, its publication could take place by June 1, perhaps even before,” promises Minister Emmanuelle Wargon's office.
Legal vagueness surrounds professional donors
Omar is co-owner in a building in the 10th arrondissement, in the courtyard of which a hotel residence is being created. / LP / DD
The situation is so ubiquitous that it almost makes you smile.
Almost.
Because Omar doesn't have the heart to smile.
Co-owner among about fifteen others in a beautiful building located 26 and 26 bis, rue du Château-Landon, in the 10th arrondissement of Paris, he still can't believe it.
Its co-ownership is brought before the Paris court by the CZ Holding company, which bought the three-storey commercial building at the back of the courtyard.
She does not claim less than 50,000 euros in damages for "unlawful and abusive resistance".
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His fault?
To have voted in general assembly with 12 votes out of 14 against the renovation and repair work of these old offices, formerly the seat of an association.
“This company takes advantage of the building's commercial status to only file a simple prior declaration of work with the town hall,” explains the 45-year-old production manager.
She indicates that she is renovating offices when in reality she is redoing the facade and building eight apartments, each equipped with a bathroom, to make them, by her own admission, short-term furnished rentals.
"
"The Covid is redistributing the cards"
The courtyard being shallow, the vis-à-vis makes it possible to closely follow the development work of the future apartments and to anticipate the nuisances to come with the comings and goings of tourists.
"The Town Hall says it cannot do anything and the company takes advantage of the legal vagueness surrounding professional landlords ... It has not filed any building permit or requested, as it has yet the obligation, the change of destination of the building , still supposed to house offices, sighs Omar.
It's still crazy that the seasonal rental of residential accommodation is strictly regulated and that companies have carte blanche under the pretext that it is commercial premises!
"
Contacted, the president of CZ Holding, Victor Cohen, underlines that its activity is "100% legal" while recognizing this paradox.
"We only buy goods for commercial use and of the 150 or so properties that we own in Paris - which represent more than 500 beds per day - the vast majority are fitted out in tourist accommodation rented by Sweet Inn", specifies the manager. whose partner is none other than the manager of the online rental platform ...
And if it has not yet changed the destination of its premises on rue du Château-Landon, "it is because the Covid is redistributing the cards, our turnover has fallen by 80% and we are considering changing our model towards a more mixed accommodation solution, of the
sleep and work
type
, combining rest rooms and offices ”, he assures us.
In short, always short-term furnished rentals.
