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Denmark to get ‘dog-owner-only’ apartments

Rental apartments in Frederikssund Municipality in northern Zealand are set to be made available only to tenants with four-legged friends.

Denmark to get 'dog-owner-only' apartments
Photo: NatashaFedorova/Depositphotos

The apartments, which will number 18 in total, will be built by local entrepreneur Niels Martin Viuff, local media Frederiksborg Amts Avis reports.

Viuff came upon the idea for the mandatory dog apartments after speaking to local residents.

“There is demand from some dog owners who are tired of there being so many places where dogs are not allowed,” Viuff told Ritzau.

“We want to meet the needs of dog owners. Many are very lonely,” he added.

An apartment block reserved for dog owners, to be given the name Hundehuset (“The Dog House”), will provide a common interest for its residents, the entrepreneur said.

The Danish Kennel Klub, Denmark’s largest association for dog owners, was consulted by Viuff over the idea and praised the concept.

“This is super exciting, it’s innovative, and we look forward to following progress and seeing how the project develops,” the organisation’s behaviour consultant Lise Lotte Christensen said.

Christensen was part of an advisory group that made suggestions as to how to make the apartments more canine-friendly, including by installing tougher flooring and a dog bathing area in the gardens.

“Dogs wear things out, they have their outdoor shoes on all year round. They don’t take their shoes off in the hallway,” she said, adding that materials used in the apartments should be easy to clean.

Viuff said that potential tenants would be required to bring their dogs to see him before signing rental contracts.

“We want to have dogs that weigh a maximum of 45 kilograms. So we will be avoiding the largest breeds, so (the apartments) won’t be crowded with dogs. But if you have small dogs, more than one is fine,” he said.

Cats will also be allowed to live in the apartments and a complex reserved solely for cat owners is also under consideration.

“I can imagine that we could make (an apartment complex) for cat owners too. That is on the drawing board,” Viuff said.

READ ALSO: Danish town introduces 'dog bars' to bring back tourists

For members

SWISS ALPS

Why luxury Swiss mountain resorts are becoming ‘lifeless’

Properties are expensive — and getting even more so — in many parts of Switzerland. But the situation is especially dire in chic mountain resorts, where the cost of holiday apartments has soared substantially. This is having an impact on the local population.

Why luxury Swiss mountain resorts are becoming 'lifeless'

In the past several years, the already pricey holiday homes in the Swiss Alps have become 30 percent more expensive, according to a new UBS report analysing 140,000 properties in the mountain resorts of Switzerland, France, and Austria.

Swiss towns, however, are the most expensive of the lot, having taken nearly all the top spots in the ranking.

Verbier, in canton of Valais,  is in the first place — the price for a square metre of living space in this resort town now costs over 21,500 francs.

St. Moritz in Graubünden is a close second (21,200 francs for sq/m), followed by Zermatt (19, 900), Gstaad (19,700), and Andermatt (18,000).

By comparison, the per-square-metre price (in Swiss francs) in the most expensive ‘foreign’ resort — Kitzbühel, Austria — is 16,200, and in the highest-priced French resort, Courchevel, 13,500.

Mountain villages are certainly picturesque and offer many skiing and hiking opportunities for sports enthusiasts, but these are not the only reasons for the influx of well-heeled residents.

This trend took off during the Covid pandemic, when numerous city dwellers wanted to escape farther away into the ‘nature’ and be able to work from home.

What does this all mean?

Getting a top franc for their property is enticing to many homeowners, who can cash in and make a good profit.

And having affluent taxpayers move in boosts local economy, which means that everyone living in the community benefits at the end.
 
“This generally supports the municipal finances which, in turn, raises the scope for infrastructure investments and thus increases the attractiveness of a destination for second home owners,” UBS said in its report.

However,  like the proverbial double-edged sword, high property prices also have a negative side.

For instance, as the wealthy move in and prices go up, the lower and middle-class people who may have lived in these mountain communities for generations — running local shops, restaurants, ski lifts, and other essential businesses — can no longer afford to live there and are forced to move out.
 
While there are no official statistics  showing how many people move away from these resorts for financial reasons, anecdotal evidence indicates this phenomenon does exist. 

One of many such testimonies comes from Graubünden’s Engadin region. 

“Locals have sold historic Engadin houses to wealthy owners, who in turn converted them and used them as holiday homes, becoming popular retreats that are often empty in the off-season,” according to Anna Florin movement, which encourages villagers to withstand the pressure from the real estate agents to sell their properties.
 
 “Life in the village is therefore dwindling or disappearing completely.”

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