Corine Mauch Steps Down, Warns on Housing

Housing is the real story here — not just one mayor leaving. Corine Mauch, who has run Zurich since 2009, is stepping down in May after saying back in March 2025 that she would not seek another term in the municipal elections. On her way out, she used a long exit interview to make a blunt point: Zurich is richer, safer, and more globally admired than it was when she took office, but finding an affordable apartment has become brutally hard. (20min.ch) ### Why is her exit news now? Because Mauch is not just any local politician. She was Zurich’s first female mayor and the first openly gay person to hold the post, and she has been re-elected four times since first winning office in 2009. After 17 years, she is one of the defining figures of the city’s modern boom — which makes her warning about housing land harder. (swissinfo.ch) ### What exactly did she warn about? She pointed to a rent spiral that keeps tightening even when the city adds homes. In the farewell interview, the key number was roughly 3,000 new apartments built in Zurich last year. But Mauch’s point was basically: that still isn’t enough, because demand keeps outrunning supply. The city looks successful from the outside, but that success keeps feeding the squeeze. (20min.ch) ### How bad is the shortage? Bad enough that normal market language stops meaning much. Zurich’s vacancy rate was just 0.1 percent in summer 2025 — basically no slack at all. What does come onto the market is often in the expensive segment, so the shortage is not only about quantity. It is also about who can still afford to stay in the city. (srf.ch) ### Didn’t the city already roll out a housing plan? Yes — in January 2026 the city government presented an updated “Programm Wohnen 2026.” The plan keeps Zurich’s long-running goal that one-third of all rental apartments should be non-profit by 2050. It also commits the city to keep buying land and buildings with annual spending in the(srf.ch)d use zoning tools more aggressively to require cheaper housing. (srf.ch) ### So why is Mauch still sounding frustrated? Because city hall can push, but it cannot fully rewrite the rules. Mauch has been saying for a while that local governments need stronger legal tools from higher levels of government. In a 2024 speech on the national housing shortage, she argued hard for a municipal right of first refusal o(srf.ch)d money and plan long term, but some of the strongest tenant-protection levers sit at the cantonal or federal level. (stadt-zuerich.ch) ### Did she admit mistakes? Yes, in the broad sense that matters politically. Her farewell framing was not “problem solved” or even “we did all we could.” It was closer to: Zurich improved in many ways, but housing remained the sore point, and the city has not kept pace with the pressure created by its own attractiveness. That is a meaningful admission from a mayor leaving after nearly two decades. (20min.ch) ### Why does this matter beyond Zurich? Because Zurich is the cleanest version of a wider urban problem in Switzerland. Strong economy, limited land, intense demand, and not enough affordable supply — especially for lower- and middle-income residents. When the mayor of the country’s biggest city leaves office saying housing is still the unresolved crisis, that is not just a local epitaph. It is a warning to whoever governs next. (srf.ch) ### Bottom line? Mauch is leaving behind a city that “works” by most headline measures. But the apartment market is the part that doesn’t. Her successor will inherit Zurich’s biggest contradiction — a city lots of people want to live in, and fewer people can actually afford. (20min.ch)