However, Senator John Le Fondré said caps – which allows government to put a limit on rents – would not be his preferred way forward. Instead, he said that other options such as limiting migration, ‘taking the heat out of the local property market’ and delivering new homes were more likely to be effective.
He was answering a question from Deputy Montfort Tadier who had asked whether the Chief Minister agreed that the level of support for a recent e-petition calling for rental caps – which has so far received more than 3,000 signatures – highlighted the ‘critical nature’ of housing affordability in the private sector.
The Deputy also wanted to know whether the Chief Minister would give an undertaking that all options, including various forms of rent control, would be explored by the Affordable Housing Policy Development Board currently being put together.
In response, Senator Le Fondré said: ‘We will be investigating options to improve affordability of housing, and one of those options could be rental caps. I will say that in my view, that they don’t tend to work in many other jurisdictions that have tried them.’
After listing the other measures that he thinks would work better than price caps, he added: ‘The new housing board will consider all these issues.’
Last week, Housing Minister Sam Mézec lodged an official response to the petition, as a ministerial response is triggered after a petition reaches the 1,000 signature mark.
In that response, the minister said that a series of measures were being considered to tackle housing affordability, including introducing a temporary ban on Islanders without housing qualifications purchasing new buy-to-let properties and restricting landlords to rent increases matching the cost of living.
In addition, the response revealed that the new policy development board being set up by the Chief Minister to look at housing affordability would be reviewing social housing rents and the current rate of 90 per cent of market value.
The response to the petition also said that passing laws to cap rents has had limited success when tried previously in Jersey and elsewhere.
