Simply speeding things up won’t be enough to tackle the housing shortage

Every year, there is a shortfall of thousands of flats in Switzerland, even though Bern is looking into ways to speed up the process. The root of the problem lies deeper. It is not the pace alone that is holding back housing construction, but an ever-more-complex web of regulations that the cantons and local authorities, in particular, need to untangle.

On 2 April 2026, the Federal Council presented its report on speeding up procedures under spatial planning and building law. It highlights one thing above all else: Bern’s scope for intervention is limited because spatial planning and building law are largely organised at cantonal level. Anyone who concludes from this that the housing shortage will be resolved quickly is missing the point. Housing construction has been in decline for years. According to the Federal Office for Housing, just over 53,000 new homes were built in 2018. By 2023, the figure had fallen to around 46,700, followed in 2024 by a slump to just under 40,000 units. Only a slight recovery is expected for 2025, which, given persistently high demand, will not be sufficient to secure the supply of housing. The federal government is coming up against constitutional limits Whilst the report from Bern does address measures such as stricter eligibility criteria for appeals or giving greater weight to housing construction, it also makes it clear that many proposals would directly encroach on cantonal procedural autonomy or fundamental rights. That is precisely where the limit lies. The federal government can set out principles and guide implementation, but it is primarily the cantons and municipalities that are responsible for enforcement. This also explains why major projects get bogged down even when, in the end, the only thing being discussed is how to speed them up. In Zurich, following years of discussions about heritage protection and the design plan, the Seebahn-Höfe project was put to a public vote. The city’s referendum information leaflet puts the project at around 350 flats for some 1,000 people, instead of the previous 269 flats for around 500 residents. The referendum against the development plan was successfully launched in July 2025, and the vote took place on 30 November 2025. Zug is testing the riskier approach The debate becomes particularly interesting where not only procedures but the standards themselves are called into question. In the canton of Zug, the ‘white zones’ model is on the political agenda. On 23 September 2025, the Cantonal Government endorsed the further development of this instrument and its possible subsequent integration into the Planning and Building Act. The canton’s 2026 budget also stipulates that the potential of new instruments such as the ‘white zone’ should be explored in greater depth and examined as a basis for a legislative process. For the property sector, this is the tougher but more decisive lever. If distances, heights or other technical requirements are reduced, the planning workload, the need for clarifications and administrative friction across specialist departments will all decrease. It is precisely this dense body of regulations that has continued to expand in recent years, whilst the production of new flats has fallen. Faster forms and shorter deadlines will therefore only help marginally. Whether this will quickly result in more housing remains to be seen. A genuine reduction in regulations, in particular, raises new questions regarding liability and jurisdictional boundaries and requires cantonal legislative work rather than mere administrative fine-tuning. For builders, developers and local authorities, however, the direction is clear. More homes will only start to be built in significant numbers again when fewer regulations have to be complied with, rather than simply fulfilling the same regulations more quickly.