One of the key things about making Scotland better is to take steps against anything that will make Scotland worse. Rent Controls are one of these things, and one of the few things that a proper investigation leads to a single conclusion- they don’t work. Usually arising in areas with very strict planning laws, and beloved by so-called “progressive” politicians, rent controls always lead to the same outcome – less affordable housing, a gradual degradation of the housing stock, less new housing build, and what new housing that is built is at the luxury end. Go check San Francisco, New York, London, and, now Berlin (an article from Bloomberg in the last few days).
In Edinburgh last week the council were defeated in their attempt to increase council rents by 2% (all covered by Universal credit they said), in order to fund a maintenance and improvement programme. This issue has, no doubt, all sorts of Edinburgh nuances, so I won’t get into that, and it only covers local authority housing but the principle is the same. Basically, if rents are controlled then the landlords stint on maintenance and don’t build more houses.
Alerted by this story, I checked out the Scottish Government’s position here and discovered that, since 2017, Local Authorities have been given the right to declare areas RPZs (Rent Pressure Zones), which allows for the possibility of controlling rent rises in both public and private sector renting. I’m not sure they’ve been implemented yet but it’s a worrying development.
Progressive politicians love rent controls because they can rage against wicked landlords, ensure that the places where they live are free of poor people, and sit back and enjoy the price of their house going up relentlessly. A further benefit (from a “progressive” political point of view) is that the homelessness takes several years to become obvious, and of course they can then virtue signal about that as well.
Rent controls are a middle class confidence trick that confer benefits on incumbents (the current voters) by keeping other people out. Look at San Francisco – one of the wealthiest places in the USA – (with thousands living in cardboard boxes, whilst Nancy Pelosi looks across the bay) It just couldn’t be clearer why this is happening. Impenetrable planning and zoning laws allied to rent controls keep things the same. It is the acme of self interest and – dare I say it – conservatism (San Francisco votes over 80% Democrat by the way). In the UK, the current London mayor is a fan of rent controls, and everyone knows about housing shortages there.
Anyway, don’t take my word for it, please take 10 minutes out and review the experiences of cities with rent controls – also looking at places like Houston, Texas which apparently has no zoning laws.
As for Scotland, Edinburgh has been run by town planners for years and no-one now goes to the “Walled City” out of choice. However there’s a wider problem. Scotland needs more people and top-down migration management is just not going to cut it. Scotland is a country with a lot of unused land and an opportunity to free it up. We need to forget about top-down (Year 0) Land Reform plans. The only way to achieve radical change is to make a bonfire of planning controls and let people build and live where they want to, and where they can make a living. Let folks get on with it and they just might surprise you.
Make Scotland Better 