Second homes planning, policy and governance

Abstract

The topic of second homes has been of major interest in regional, rural and tourism planning and policy since the 1970s. More recently the lens of governance has also begun to be applied as a lens to the topic of mobility, including second homes. This paper provides a review of the literature on second homes, policy and governance and highlights major themes and issues including that of housing policy, sustainability, political representation and the environment. The paper suggests that research in the governance of second homes can help shed further light on problems of understanding and governing mobility and multiple dwellings in contemporary neoliberal globalisation. It highlights that that governance, policy and regulatory structures are much better geared to the stationery and the immobile than they are to the movement of people (and capital) between jurisdictions, as well as to mobile homes themselves.

Resumen

El tema de las segundas viviendas ha sido de fundamental interés en la planificación y política regional, rural y turística desde 1970. Más recientemente, las lentes de forma de gobierno han comenzado también a ser aplicada en el tema de la movilidad, incluyendo las segundas viviendas. Este trabajo proporciona una revisión de la literatura sobre las segundas viviendas, la política y forma de gobierno y destaca temas y cuestiones fundamentales incluyendo la política de la vivienda, la sostenibilidad, la representación política y el medioambiente. El trabajo sugiere que la investigación en la forma de gobierno de las segundas viviendas puede ayudar a arrojar más luz a los problemas de compresión y dirección de la movilidad y múltiple residencia en la actual globalización neoliberal. Destaca que la forma de gobierno, la política y las estructuras reguladoras está mucho más orientadas al sedentarismo y la no movilidad que al movimiento de personas (y capital) entre jurisdicciones así como a la propias viviendas rodantes (i.e. caravanas).

Palabras claves: movilidad; ruralidad neoliberal; turismo; desarrollo económico rural; relacionalidad; sostenibilidad

Résumé

Depuis les années 1970, le sujet des résidences secondaires ne cesse de susciter un grand intérêt sur le plan des politiques et de planification touristique, rurale et régionale. Très récemment, le sujet de la mobilité, y compris celle liée aux résidences secondaires, a été dans le collimateur de la gouvernance. L'objectif de cet article est de passer en revue les recherches faites sur les résidences secondaires, leur viabilité, la représentation politique et l'environnement. Cette étude suggère que la recherche faite sur la gestion des résidences secondaires peut permettre à mieux identifier certains problèmes liés à la compréhension et à la gestion de la mobilité, ainsi que de multiples formes de logements au sein de la globalisation néolibérale contemporaine. Elle souligne que la gouvernance, la politique et les structures de régulation s'orientent plus vers le stationnaire et l'immobilité plutôt que vers la mobilité des personnes (et du capital) entre les juridictions, ainsi que celle des maisons mobiles elles-mêmes.

Mots-clés: mobilité; ruralité néolibérale; tourisme; développement économique rural; relationalité; durabilité

摘要

从二十世纪七十年代开始， “第二居所” 成为地区、农村和旅游的规划及政策制订的一个主要关注点。最近， 政府管理的视角开始转向移动性， 包括第二居所的移动。这篇论文对有关第二居所、政策和管理的文献进行综述， 强调了包括住房政策、可持续发展、政治表征和环境方面主要的焦点和问题。本文认为对第二居所的管理的研究有助于将来探讨在现代新自由主义全球化语境下理解与管理移动性和多处居所时碰到的问题。文章强调， 比起应用于管辖区以及移动居所之间的人口和资本移动， 管理、政策和监管结构能更好地适用于稳定和不可移动的事物和现象。

关键词: 移动、; 新自由主义农村化、; 旅游、; 农村经济发展、; 相对性、; 可持续性

Keywords:

• mobility
• neoliberal rurality
• tourism
• rural economic development
• relationality
• sustainability

Introduction

Although governance is a significant construct in public policy research, it is only since 2000 that the term has come to be substantially adopted, sometimes uncritically, within the lexicon of tourism studies (Hall, Williams, & Lew, 2014). Given the growing interest in tourism in issues of contemporary governance and the substantial policy and planning issues that have been associated with second homes since the 1970s (Müller & Hoogendoorn, 2013), it is surprising that the issues of governance have not received more coverage in the study of second homes. This article provides a review of second home governance, planning and policy and serves as an introduction to this special issue of the journal.

The significance of governance

Governance is the act of governing. There is no single accepted definition of governance. This is reflected in Kooiman's (2003, p. 4) concept of governance as ‘the totality of theoretical conceptions on governing'. Definitions tend to suggest recognition of a change in political practices involving, among other things, increasing globalisation, the rise of networks that cross the public–private divide, the marketisation of the state and increasing institutional fragmentation (Jordan, Wurzel, & Zito, 2005). The concept of governance has therefore assumed importance as researchers have sought to understand how the state can best act to mediate contemporary tourism-related social, economic, political and environmental policy problems at a time when the role of the state has itself changed given the dominance of neoliberal policy discourse in many developed, and increasingly less developed, countries (Anastasiadou, 2008; Hall, 2011a, 2011b, 2011c; Hall & Zapata Campos, 2014; Jenkins, Hall, & Mkono, 2014; Schilcher, 2007).

Governance is a term often used in tourism to describe network-based modes of management over activities or resources whose values are recognised and sometimes contested. Often, governance is used in a context of globalisation to explain how decision-making formerly executed at the national level has been both ‘up-scaled' to supranational levels such as the EU and ‘downscaled' to regions, counties, municipalities, interest groups and alliances of decision-making bodies below and across administrative and jurisdictional borders (Dredge & Jenkins, 2003; Görg, 2007; Hooghe & Marks, 2001, 2003). Compared to traditional top-down management principles governance signifies an increased diversity of power in decision-making and a shift from hierarchies to networks: ‘from coordinated, hierarchical structures and processes of societal steering to a network-based process of exchange and negotiation' (Salskov-Iversen, Krause Hansen, & Bislev, 2000, p. 183). Nevertheless, studies have shown how different types of governance structures manifest themselves in tourism, and that different governance approaches operate at the same time within a destination economy (Beaumont & Dredge, 2010; Dredge, 2001, 2006; Pechlaner & Tschurtschenthaler, 2003; Zapata, Hall, Lindo, & Vanderschaeghen, 2011).

Hall (2011b, 2013) distinguished between four governance structures derived from governance literature (Pierre & Peters, 2000, 2005): hierarchies, markets, networks and communities. These categories were derived from the relationship between state or public authority on the one hand and stakeholder autonomy on the other. Hierarchical governance shows the highest degree of state or public intervention, and market governance the least. Network and community governance structures signal different modes of public–private partnerships and community participation in destination economy developments. Hultman and Hall (2012) also showed that if it is assumed that place and meaning in tourism are socially constructed, then the articulation and identification of spatial ontology in relation to governance structure will become an important aspect to understand power relations embedded in tourism place-making (Hall, 2007). This means that place-making practices in tourism, such as promotional and political strategies to attract mobile tourists, migrants, firms and capital, become ordering practices, and governance structures become constellations of meaning generation (Hultman & Hall, 2012), with corresponding implications for mobility (Coles & Hall, 2006; Schroeder & Formiga, 2012).

Governing mobility

One of the potential ironies in the application of the concept of governance to tourism and second homes is that despite the concept of governance emerging in reaction, at least in part, to the emergence of contemporary globalisation, the governance of mobility is arguably even more chaotic than ever. Governance, policies and regulatory structures are much better geared to the stationery and the immobile than they are to the movement of people (and capital) between jurisdictions, as well as to mobile homes themselves (Hall, 2014; Figure 1). For the purposes of governance everybody has to be somewhere, and governance systems find it difficult to cope with ‘somewheres' that are in multiple locations or are mobile. Most countries' taxation and personal identification systems are geared to the notion of a single permanent residence and do not readily account for the spatial mobility of contemporary life that many people experience for work and play, as well as increasingly for health, education and the maintenance of family and friendship relations (Coles, Duval, & Hall, 2004; Coles & Hall, 2008, 2011). In such a situation the boundaries between tourism, migration and short-term mobilities have become ever more fluid as the distinctions between types of movement have become increasingly blurred (Åkerlund, Lipkina, & Hall, 2014; Hall, 2005). Yet while many jurisdictions seek to attract mobility they often appear poorly equipped to govern the implications of mobility.

Figure 1. The regulation of spatially fixed property and mobile people and capital within different jurisdictions.

Governing second homes

One area in which this seeming paradox is well illustrated, and which is the subject of this special issue, is that of second homes. Importantly, it must be emphasised that concerns over governance of second homes are not isolated to the international sphere, as important as that is, but also applies in domestic second home tourism. Second home ownership therefore poses significant challenges for governing not only with respect to managing community dynamics of permanent and temporary populations but also issues of political representation, responsibilities and rights (Åkerlund et al., 2014; Coles, 2008; Dredge & Jamal, 2013). Although many authors have noted the value of including second home development and promotion in regional and local development plans (Brida, Osti, & Santifaller, 2011; Klemm, 1996; Müller, Hall, & Keen, 2004; Paris, 2011), there are numerous issues with respect to the political rights available to second home owners as a result of being either a non-permanent resident or citizen of the second home jurisdiction (e.g. Lipkina & Hall, 2014). There are also difficulties in determining exactly which part of government is responsible for second homes, as they are managed in different institutional fields, such as land-use planning, infrastructure planning and environmental policy, and a comprehensive idea of its implications is not usually formed. Furthermore, as with any form of longer-term visitation the internationalisation of second homes is also connected to both (im)migration policy and tourism development strategies potentially leading to situations when economic development agencies as well as potential owners may find themselves dealing with different, and sometimes conflicting, policy agendas (Abdul-Aziz, Loh, & Jaafar, 2014; Åkerlund, 2013; Hall & Williams, 2002; Müller, 2002; O'Reilly, 2003; Pitkänen, 2011; Williams & Hall, 2000).

The governance of second homes occurs at different regulatory scales, which include the supra- and international, the national and the regional and local. However, the subject of regulation is usually either people or property, a third subject, that of capital, is tied with the other two. The regulation of the second home is often the same as any other form of housing but, depending on the jurisdiction, second home properties can have additional layers of regulatory requirements because of their impacts on amenity landscapes and the housing stock available to permanent residents (Collins & Kearns, 2010; Hidle, Ellingsen, & Cruickshank, 2010). In addition, in the case of international second homes there are issues of rights and citizenship (Stapa, Musaev, Hieda, & Amzah, 2013), as well as potential concerns over foreign land ownership (Pitkänen & Vepsäläinen, 2008). However, such concerns can also apply in domestic second home ownership with respect to political representation and the selection of permanent residence, especially following retirement, as the selection of place of permanent residence can provide for monetary flows from central to local government as well as inform investment decisions, such as health care and public transport, that are often based on population estimates (Müller & Hall, 2003). Moreover, multiple dwellings can also provide fundamental challenges to understandings of democratic representation because of the relationship between political standing and property ownership and rights (Ostrow, 2002). In political systems where voting is not based on property there remain significant issues in enabling meaningful political representation for ‘non-permanent' dwellers (Rinne, Paloniemi, Tuulentie, & Kietäväinen, 2014).

Planning and Policy Issues

With only limited exceptions (Bar-Sinai, 2009), the vast majority of second home research is based in peri-urban (Fourneau, 1983; Gornostayeva, 1991; Leetmaa, Brade, Anniste, & Nuga, 2012; Zhikharevich & Litovka, 1990), rural and peripheral areas (Coppock, 1977; Dijst, Lanzendorf, Barendregt, & Smit, 2005; Hall & Müller, 2004; Hiltunen & Rehunen, 2014; Müller, 2006, 2013; Müller & Hoogendoorn, 2013; Overvåg, 2009; Paris, 2011). However, second homes occur unevenly in space and time and are more significant in areas subject to high degrees of tourism urbanisation, such as in coastal and alpine areas (Barke, 1991; Gosar, 1989; Grant & Wall, 1979; Mika, 2012; Odermatt & Elsasser, 1991; Opäçiäç & Mikäçic, 2009; Roca, Roca, & Oliveira, 2011), as well as purpose built resorts (Chipeniuk, 2005; Nepal & Jamal, 2011), in high amenity areas that are also easily accessible from urban locations. Many of the areas with high concentrations of second homes also become retirement centres over time as second homes become a place of more frequent dwelling. Unfortunately, studies of the extent to which second home purchases act as a precursor to permanent relocation and migration are relatively limited (Müller & Marjavaara, 2012). Although it must of course be emphasised that given increased spatial mobility as a result of changed work and leisure practices for many people the notion of a single home is now substantially out of date. Yet debates on second homes in many countries still presume that a single ‘home’ or residence is the norm.

Depending on the availability of housing stock, second home purchase and development may place actual or perceived pressures on housing availability and affordability (Allen, Gallent, & Tewdwr-Jones, 1999; Gkartzios & Scott, 2009; Marjavaara, 2007). Nevertheless, where housing stock is readily available second homes may be welcomed as a significant means of economic development (Hjalager, Staunstrup, & Ibsen, 2011; Hoogendoorn & Visser, 2010; Velvin, Kvikstad, Drag, & Krogh, 2013) and property price maintenance. Indeed, a further, though relatively underexplored aspect of second homes is the interrelationships between housing, real estate and investment policies in general and second homes (Bhattacharya & Kim, 2011; Bianco, 2006; Jurinski, 2010; Norris, Paris, & Winston, 2010; Oliveira, Roca, & Roca, 2013; Visser, 2004), including second home development and purchase and its influence on housing affordability (Hadsell & Colarusso, 2009; Williams & Twine, 1994). Further complicating the understanding of the relationship between second homes, displacement and housing concerns are issues of definition as to what constitutes a second home (Czarnecki & Frenkel, 2014), and the difficulty in differentiating between second homes for leisure and recreation and as an investment mechanism (Huang & Yi, 2011; Hui & Yu, 2009; Norris & Winston, 2009). Indeed, in many cases, and particularly where retirement, superannuation and taxation policies are favourable, such definitional differences dissolve – an observation that also points towards the need for greater interdisciplinary exchange between tourism and housing studies (Paris, 2011). Nevertheless, the issue of definition remains important for areas that seek to achieve positive development benefits from second homes without creating unwanted externalities.

In addition to impacts on housing stock, concerns over the social dimensions of second homes usually relate to the influx of a substantial temporary population in relation to the permanent community (Brida, Accinelli, & Carrera, 2007; Nystrom, 1989). Much of the work in this area focuses on the relationship of second homes to issues of identity, whether it be of the people purchasing or building second homes (Blekesaune, Haugen, & Villa, 2010; Flemsäter, 2009; Stedman, 2006; Wrathall, 1980), or their effect on the locations in which they are situated (Bawedin & Miossec, 2013; Hiltunen, Pitkänen, Vepsäläinen, & Hall, 2013; Milstead, 2012; Pitkänen & Vepsäläinen, 2008; Richetto, 1983). Often such relationships are expressed in different understandings of how a location should be developed or used given different perceptions and understandings of place (Asgary, Rezvani, & Mehregan, 2011; Farstad & Rye, 2013; Fountain & Hall, 2002; Kaltenborn, Andersen, Nellemann, Bjerke, & Thrane, 2008; Rye & Gunnerud Berg, 2011; Selwood & May, 2001; Tuulentie & Meriruoho, 2008). Concerns over large temporary populations are also reflected in much of the writing on the environmental impacts of second homes (Morris & Dickinson, 1987; Sargent & Berke, 1979), together with potential effects on amenity values (Juvik, Juvik, & Hamilton, 1992; Kondo, Rivera, & Rullman, 2012; Vera Rebollo & Ivars Baidal, 2003). Indeed, there is a growing interest in the environmental dimensions of second homes (Andersen, Christensen, Jensen, Kofoed, & Morthorst, 2008; Goble, Lewis, Hill, & Phillips, 2014; Hao, Long, & Hoggard, 2014; Huhtala & Lankia, 2012; Jeong, García-Moruno, Hernández-Blanco, & Jaraíz-Cabanillas, 2014; Lanza & Randazzo, 2013; Long & Hoogendoorn, 2013), which also has significant planning impact as a result of debates over the split of the costs of infrastructure provision between permanent and non-permanent provision (Grahn-Voorneveld, 2012) and implementation of planning law (Persson, 2014).

As a result over concerns over their perceived and actual impacts, a substantial amount of planning literature on the best way of integrating second homes into local, regional and rural planning has emerged since the 1970s (Clivaz, 2006, 2014; Etchelecou, 1991; Ferrero, 1998; Gallent, 1997; Gallent, Mace, & Tewdwr-Jones, 2003, 2004; Gallent & Tewdwr-Jones, 2001; Kaltenborn, Andersen, & Nellemann, 2007; Langdalen, 1980; Overväg, 2010; Scharf, 2002; Shucksmith, 1983; Stroud, 1985). Some of this work has focused on resolving conflicts between ‘permanent' and ‘temporary' residents, which also potentially reflect differences in economic and social capital (Shucksmith, 1985), leading to increased questioning as to whether second homes are contributing to the development of elite landscapes (Hall & Müller, 2004). Perhaps unfortunately, much of the second home planning literature has been influenced by British perspectives on second homes that present a limited case globally with respect to competition for rural housing stock and only gives limited recognition to broader issues of planning restrictions on housing development for lower socio-economic groups in rural areas. However, what is clear is that governance measures to manage second homes within regional and rural planning have shifted. As in much contemporary neoliberal policy-making, market and self-regulatory approaches tend to dominate, limited changes in taxation measures for unoccupied dwellings will likely have only marginal effects on second home purchase. What is usually not being tackled is either increasing planning restrictions or, perhaps more significantly, addressing issues of under-provision of public and low-cost housing (Janoschka & Haas, 2014). In some situations, such as parts of contemporary Britain or coastal Australia, second homes only further highlight the increasing disparities in wealth in many societies which is reflected in competition between the mobile and the immobile for access to housing stock. The development and application of second home planning and policy therefore raises more fundamental questions about neoliberal rurality and the capacity of policy-makers to effectively adapt to more long-term perspectives on housing and human movement in an age of mobility (Coles & Hall, 2006; Halfacree, 2012; Hall, 2005; Jauhiainen, 2009; Joseph, 2012; Vepsäläinen & Pitkänen, 2010).

Conclusions

The governance of second homes is an important dimension of the overall problem of governing mobility and multiple dwellings, as well as a reflection of the difficulties facing places in attracting and retaining mobile people and capital. Research on second homes may therefore contribute to a wide number of policy areas that go beyond tourism. Second homes also reflect the challenge of developing coherent policies for an issue that cuts across different levels of governance and policy areas that traditionally have not sufficiently engaged each other. The contents of this special issue reflect some of these concerns. Czarnecki and Frenkel (2014) highlight the issues associated with second home definition as it affects statistical collection and therefore policy development in the Polish context. Osbaldiston, Picken, and Duffy (2014) examine the issue of future use of land by second home owners and their implications for infrastructure, planning and sustainability, concerns that are also raised in the work of Persson (2014) in Sweden and Rey-Valette, Rulleau, Hennequin, Meur-Férec, and Flanquart (2014) in France. Drawing on a series of Finnish cases Rinne et al. (2014) discuss issues of second home owner participation in planning and decision-making, while the final contribution is that of Åkerlund et al. (2014) who provide a multi-scale perspective on governance of international second homes in Finland and Malta.

The papers of this special issue therefore provide a valuable account of some of the main foci in research on the governance of second homes. Moreover, the research themes are also strongly future oriented, especially with respect to climate change and sustainability, and reflect the importance of taking a life course perspective on both individual mobility and the use of properties. An additional dimension that is assuming increasing importance is the need to take a more relational perspective in the study of second homes and mobility (Coles, Hall, & Duval, 2006; Hall, 2014; Luka & Lister, 2012). In a mobile society it is impossible to understand what happens at second homes, and therefore how they may best be governed, unless there is also an understanding of other sites where individuals dwell, including the so-called permanent residence location.

Acknowledgements

Comments by Dorothee Bohn, Thor Flognfeldt, Dieter Müller, Kati Pitkänen, Yael Ram, Jarkko Saarinen, Noam Shoval, and Ulrika Åkerlund are gratefully acknowledged as are the insights provided by the conversations and papers at the New Perspectives on Second Homes Conference, June 2014, Stockholm, Sweden.

Funding

Some of the research on which the paper is based was supported by the Academy of Finland [SA 255424].