Nearly two thirds (64%) of the municipalities affected by the SRU law setting social housing quotas have not respected their production objectives over the 2020-2022 period, the Abbé Pierre Foundation denounced on Wednesday.
Among the 659 out-of-the-way municipalities (out of 1,031 concerned) are almost all of the large cities, points out the Foundation, which relies on data provided by the national SRU commission.
The SRU law (Solidarity and urban renewal), adopted in 2000, requires urban municipalities to have a minimum rate of social housing of 20 or 25% depending on the case. Municipalities which do not respect this obligation are assigned three-year production objectives to catch upwith the threat of a fine if they do not keep them.
At the national level, all the municipalities concerned have only produced 67% of the social housing they should have created to meet their objectives. This is much less than during the two previous periodswhen this figure was greater than 100%.
Montpellier at the top, Neuilly-sur-Seine bad student
The Foundation attributes this fall to several causes: the Covid-19 pandemic, the economic situation which significantly slowed down construction and a government policy that is very unfavorable to social housing. The government is fully mobilized to ensure compliance with the law, in conjunction with communities, the Minister responsible for Housing declared to AFP, we are working to encourage municipalities to sign social diversity contracts to meet the objectives, with nearly a third of the deficit municipalities which are interested.
Among the large cities, only Montpellier has achieved its objectives. Paris has respected its quantitative production objective (114%), but remains off track because the municipality has made too much use of low-social housing, targeting less disadvantaged groups.
Nice and the upscale commune of Boulogne-Billancourt (Hauts-de-Seine), southwest of Paris, are the worst performers of the big cities, having each built only 13% of the social housing assigned to them. Followed by Toulon (19%), Marseille (38%), Aix-en-Provence (47%), Perpignan (49%), Annecy (81%), Bordeaux (82%), Lyon (86%) and Saint-Paul from La Runion (89%).
The Foundation also points the finger at the recalcitrants, including several chic towns in Ile-de-France which display extremely low production figures, such as Neuilly-sur-Seine (1% of the objective), Rambouillet (2%) , Maisons-Laffitte (8%) or Vincennes (16%).
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