The reform of the SRU law, imposing social housing quotas on cities, will include intermediate housing, with higher rents, in the tools offered to deficit municipalities to catch up, the Minister for Housing revealed on Thursday.
Prime Minister Gabriel Attal promised to reform the politically very sensitive SRU (Solidarity and Urban Renewal) law to include intermediate housing, with regulated rents but higher than in HLM.
The approximately 2,100 municipalities subject to this law must have a rate of 20 or 25% social housing. Those beyond this obligation are assigned, every three years, a production objective to catch up. If they do not respect it, they may be declared deficient and have to pay a fine.
For deficit municipalities, which therefore have objectives of building social housing, we would like to open up the possibility for them to use LLI (intermediate rental housing, Editor’s note) to achieve their objectives, declared Guillaume Kasbarian during a Bussy press point. -Saint-Georges (Seine-et-Marne).
There will probably be (…) conditions that will be set, he said, adding that the government’s objective was to encourage builder mayors, not to give a blank check to those who do not want to build .
The bill containing this provision, intended as a broader text to promote housing for the middle classes, will be presented to the Council of Ministers in May, said Guillaume Kasbarian, who is aiming for an examination in the Senate in June.
Over the period 2020-2022, 711 municipalities, out of 1,022 out of reach, or more than two thirds (70%), have not achieved their catch-up objectives, revealed the minister.
Among them, 341, or just half (48%) of the deficit municipalities, were declared deficient by the prefects, detailed the minister.
The vast majority of municipalities declared deficiencies fall far short of the mark, more than half of them having achieved less than a quarter of their production objectives.
The prefects were able to choose to spare the municipalities which, although having missed their objectives, showed themselves to be making efforts, underlines the minister. On the contrary, they sanctioned the most refractory municipalities, where the share of social housing in the building permits granted remained low.
For 69 municipalities, the prefecture has taken over, at least in part, the examination of building permits at the town hall.
The fines brought the State some 250 million euros, which are reallocated to the production of social housing.
The Provence-Alpes-Cte-d’Azur region showed itself to be particularly bad, with 95% of its municipalities affected by the SRU law falling short of their objectives, and 58% sanctioned by a deficiency order.
Auvergne-Rhne-Alpes is also far from the mark, with 44% of municipalities sanctioned, followed by Occitanie (36%).
In Le-de-France, the region with the most municipalities affected by the SRU law, 29% of them were hit with a deficiency order.