In Paris, to boost social home ownership, the municipality renounces zero-interest loans and changes its strategy by strengthening its solidary land organization (OFS), an anti-speculative tool which is now developing throughout France.
The Paris Council, which met from November 16 to 19, plans to eliminate the “Paris Logement 0%” and “Residential course” loans, which, in eighteen years, have helped 25,000 households to become homeowners. but have become inoperative, since only seven were granted in 2020. “The mechanism does not make it possible to contribute to the fight against the continuous increase in the Parisian real estate market, which makes home ownership extremely difficult for modest or middle-class households”, notes the mayor (Socialist Party, PS), Anne Hidalgo. You might as well give up.
Instead, the elected representative and her deputy (French Communist Party, PCF) for housing, Ian Brossat, are betting on a more virtuous mechanism, because it retains its social vocation in perpetuity. A non-profit SFO buys the land, which it retains ownership of, and rents it to the buyers, who only become owners of the building. In Paris, where land accounts for almost half the price of housing, this amounts to offering an apartment at 5,000 euros per m.2, instead of 10,000 euros, with a land rent of 2.50 euros per m2 per month.
The contract signed between the OFS and the purchaser is a real solidarity lease (BRS), concluded over a very long period, recharged at each change of owner. The buy-lease does not lose its value, but neither does it take it speculatively, since resale is only possible at the initial purchase price, slightly indexed and to buyers with capped resources. . The apartment is thus perpetually affordable, and the initial effort made by the local community, made safe.
“Half the market price”
The OFS in Paris, approved by the State in 2020, launched its first operation of 23 housing units in the 14e arrondissement, in April 2021, with nearly 2,700 candidates. This success encourages the City to double its funding, from 4.3 to 10 million euros, and eight projects, totaling 850 housing units, will be launched in 2022 and 2023. Paris is not a pioneer in this area, since before it, The Workers’ Committee for Housing in the Basque Country had, in December 2019, marketed the very first solidarity housing in Espelette (Pyrénées-Atlantiques) – it totals 200 today.
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