He likes to tell the story of the early summer day when the driver of a passing car waved and called out: “Bravo, Mr. Mayor, for the measure on second homes!” Jean-Charles Orsucci, mayor of Bonifacio, takes pride in being Corsica’s first public official to make use of a new law allowing for a ban on building new holiday properties. “Here, I’m known as the Macronist of Corsica, but I was the first to implement the restriction,” he boasted. “Considering what people say about the island, I’m surprised when I hear nationalist mayors announce, ‘we’ll do it, but later.’ What I’ve done is courageous.”
Secondary residences represent nearly six of every 10 homes in his city, where only 50 hectares of land remain available for construction. “Speculation keeps locals from buying land to build their homes,” said the mayor, who hopes his move will drive prices down and accepts “the political risk of displeasing” real estate agents, developers and owners who would have to sell their land for less. “It’s not the same thing to sell a 500-square-meter villa in Sperone and to build a house for a teacher,” said a member of his entourage, joking, “the people in construction won’t be driving Porsche Cayennes anymore.”
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