Rentals will be regulated in Grenoble from this fall on part of the territory, an experiment that will last until 2026. The rent control establishes a maximum rent (in euros per m²) that cannot exceed 20% a reference rent decided by a prefectural decree. The private market rental observatory Clameur questioned during a press conference the territorial network on which the delimitation of regulated and non-regulated areas of the city is based. “The highest rents are found in the so-called cheapest and therefore unregulated area“, says Arnaud Simon, director of the Clameur scientific committee. In the area where the places are considered higher, and which have therefore been regulated later, some rents will be expensive but others are lower.
According to the local observatory network in Grenoble, there are three areas of rental levels. A first zone at 12.1 euros per square meter, a second zone at 11.8 and a third at 10.7. A large part of the city would be above the limit of €12.10/m², according to Clameur. The white zone or third zone (see map), the one where the prices per square meter would be 10.7 euros, is considered less expensive than the two areas to the north and therefore is not regulated. However, in the white part, in the Eaux Claires-Painlevé and Teisseire districts, the rent would be higher than 10.7 euros per square meter, according to Clameur. Rather be around 16 euros per square meter. No less than 82% of the IRIS (grouped blocks for statistical information, these pieces of neighborhoods used by INSEE for its statistics) have a rent higher than the average value of their respective area in all three areas, says Clamor. The reading of the metropolis then underestimates the market rents.
“The rental card of the metropolis of Grenoble, which serves as a basis for the administration, is fake. There is a wolf. The white zone (Editor’s note: unsupervised zone) will become an Eldorado. There are other areas that have to be poxed“, denounces the president of Clameur, Jean-Michel Camizon. Before asking: “Is it a political will to indicate a lower rent per square meter to regulate deliberately lower rents?» The regulation of only part of a geographical area leads to an increase in rents in nearby places without regulation, affirms Clameur.
Could the data from the Urbanization Agency of the Grenoble Region (AURG) be wrong? Or are they based not on rent amounts at a given time, but on changes in rent from one year to the next? When contacted, the AURG did not respond to our questions.