From: d9bertil@dtek.chalmers.se (Bertil Jonell)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.nordic
Subject: Re: Dagens Nyheter April 6th
Date: 7 Apr 92 13:37:53 GMT
Organization: Chalmers University of Technology

In article <1992Apr6.094502.5672@lth.se> sundinKC@dna.lth.se (Anders Sundin) writes:
>Today DN presented the main proposals for new subsidies to help
>the retired to pay their rent. The KBT investigation was formed
>with the hope that the 8000 million kr in subsidies could be
>stretched to allow the retired to live in new expensive houses.
>KBT main proposal costs 9600 million kr yearly.
>6 kr is about 1 US dollar.

  This shouldn't be needed if it wasn't for a severely broken housing policy,
a broken land-utilization policy and a almost as broken tax policy.

  The roots of this problem date back to the 60's and 70's when the entire 
country should be planned. In the General Plan for Sweden (that we studied in
highschool) it is clearly stated that even though people like to have 
vacation homes in certain parts of the country they should be forced to
accept other parts of the country that was 'underutilized' like the coast of
Sma'land and Norrland.
  Then there was the Beach Protection Act which put a total ban on all new
houses closer than 500m from the beach. Those that still were there would
be allowed to stand.
  The third part of this is that the property tax on houses are tied directly
to the current market value of the house.

  A house on the west coast, or in the Stockholm archipelago is very 
attractive. A lot of people would like to have one. Especially close to the 
water. So when the building of new houses in those and other areas was limited,
and when the number of houses close to the water was frozen the prices
skyrocketed. It is like Mark Twain said: "Buy land! They've stopped making it."

  So suddenly the old houses of fishermen and merchant mariners was worth
their weight in gold. Every little shed made to store nets in was worth
enormous sums. Some people I know who live in a (formerly) small (formerly)
fishing village was offered in excess of 1.5 million SKr for a uninhabitable 
4x4m shed they have their Evinrude in.

  But as the value went up, so did the tax, and a lot of people who had lived
there for generations couldn't afford to keep their houses anymore. Their
homes was converted into vacation houses. The number of around-the-year
inhabitants fell, the ships closed in the winter, the schools shut their
doors for good, and the tax base left. One after one old fishing villages
was converted into summertowns that only live for a few months every year.

  Everybody agrees that this is a problem, and measure after measure have
been taken to correct it but nothing have worked. Laws were passed that 
no more sheds was to be converted into vacation homes. Laws were passed that
prevented the sale of the houses to people who didn't intend to live there
the whole year, but so far only an economic crisis have mananged to put
even a dent in the high values of beachfront property.

  "Start building new houses, so that the supply will increase and the prices
will fall all by themselves!" you say? No, that hasn't been tried because it
is all too logical.

> Anders Sundin           e-mail: sundinKC@dna.lth.se

-bertil-
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