Housing

Objectives
The housing policy of the canton is designed to improve the housing market in the canton. In particular, we aim to ensure that there is a sufficient supply of affordable housing on the market. This policy has several goals:

  • to make it easier for people on low income to find housing
  • to allow certain categories of the population (the disabled, the elderly, young people in training or education) to find housing suited to their particular needs
  • to encourage people to acquire their own houses or flats

The Role of the Canton
The canton does not always intervene in the housing sector in the same way. Its interventions depend very much on the situation on the housing market. The Canton can only assume a regulating role by the way in which it allocates subsidies. During periods with a housing shortage and very high mortgage rates, financial assistance is granted more easily, while in periods when the housing market is saturated, subsidies tend to fall.

Housing Service
It is the main task of the Housing Service to implement the current policy on housing subsidies. It manages federal aid provided for in the Law on the Development of New Housing and Home Ownership. In addition, it pays out subsidies granted by the Canton. More...

Mediation in Matters of Housing
Rental agreement mediation boards are also active in the field of housing. These boards are managed by the Justice Service and oversee mediation activities in conflicts between tenants and landlords. More...