Reform of the SRU Act, which imposes social housing quotas on cities, will include transitional housing with higher rents in the tools offered to deficit municipalities to catch up, the housing minister said on Thursday.
Prime Minister Gabriel Attal has promised to reform the politically sensitive SRU (Solidarity and Urban Renewal) law to include rent-regulated transitional housing, but higher than in HLM. The approximately 2,100 municipalities covered by this law must have a rate of 20 or 25% social housing. Those who fail to meet this obligation are set a production target every three years to catch up. If they do not respect this, they can be declared “deficient” and have to pay a fine.
More than 1000 remote cities
“We would like to open up the possibility of using LLI for deficit municipalities that therefore aim to build social housing. (temporary rental housing, editor’s note) achieve your goals», declared Guillaume Kasbarian at a press conference in Bussy-Saint-Georges (Seine-et-Marne). Emmanuelle Cosse, former housing minister, estimated in March that integrating transitional housing into the HLM quota would be “gift» done to rebellious mayors. “It probably will (…) the conditions that will be set“, the prime minister confirmed, adding that the government’s goal was “support building mayors“,”no giving a blank check to those who don’t want to build“.
The bill containing the provision, intended as a broader text to support housing for the middle classes, will be submitted to the Council of Ministers in May, said Guillaume Kasbarian, who is seeking a Senate examination in June. In the 2020-2022 period, 711 out of approximately 1,100 out-of-reach municipalities did not reach their catch-up targets, the minister said. Between them, “a little over 340“, or only half, were declared insufficient, the minister detailed. The fines brought the state approximately 250 million euros, which are redistributed to the production of social housing.