“Housing is partly at the root of the yellow vest crisis” – L’Express

L’Express: While property builders and developers are waving the red rag, does the current housing crisis seem serious and lasting to you?

Catherine Vautrin: The housing crisis is extremely serious, because it has several facets which intersect and add up to, ultimately, lead to a blockage of what I call residential pathways. Let’s start with social housing. Despite the numerous legal texts and in particular the SRU law – which imposes a minimum of 20% of social housing on municipalities – we do not have a sufficient number of social housing corresponding to needs, in a homogeneous manner across the territory. And when their number is locally sufficient, mobility is extremely low.

Another crisis, that of access to property. France is one of the European countries where the ownership rate is the lowest, even though access to property is seen by a majority of French people as a safety net. However, the rise in borrowing rates to 4% has led to a stuck situation, with many households no longer able to borrow. This has very significant social and demographic consequences: young couples give up on becoming parents or others are forced to cohabit even though they would like to separate.

There is also real concern about real estate development: many programs are not getting off the ground. Certainly, the Caisse des Dépôts will resume certain operations, as in 2008, which will give a breath of fresh air to social housing, but this does not necessarily correspond to local needs.

And then there are more diffuse crises: those of energy strainers or even senior housing. Many elderly people live in large homes that are no longer suited to their needs, but do not want to leave… All these elements add up to give rise to a multifactorial crisis.

Would you say that the housing issue is at the root of the yellow vest crisis five years ago?

Yes, partly. Over the last twenty years, to realize their dream of home ownership, many families have bought their homes further and further from cities, where prices were much lower. This often involved two or even three cars, and therefore very significant transport costs. Hence their extreme sensitivity to gasoline prices. This is how the housing issue has a link with the yellow vest crisis, which was born from anger against the surge in gasoline prices. I will add one element: for those who had made this choice, the financial effort had often been calculated as accurately as possible. Today, with the price of a liter of gasoline approaching 2 euros, this no longer applies.

How can we rebuild what you call residential pathways?

A multitude of things. I will start with social housing. We must already say that there is not social housing but social housing. Nothing in common between a Plai product [NDLR : financé par un prêt locatif aidé d’intégration]which is the subject of subsidies for landlords and is aimed at the most precarious households, and so-called “PLS” housing [prêt locatif social], with higher out-of-pocket costs for the households that occupy them. It is precisely this latter population that could access property thanks to a product that is not sufficiently developed: the PSLA, the rental-ownership social loan. The concept ? You choose a home whose price is below the market that you will initially rent with an option to purchase and you have eighteen months to exercise this option. The advantage? You test the neighborhood and assess your ability to buy. In the vast majority of cases, people exercise the option before the deadline. The problem is that this type of product is not widespread enough.

Always the same thing: the difficulty in finding land. This is a huge topic. I know him well as president of Anru. During urban renovation operations, on an occupied site, you can carry out your work without difficulty, but, as soon as it comes to collapsing and then rebuilding, you must first find a place to rehouse people for the duration of the works. However, today we do not have a valve. The social housing crisis is hampered by the difficulty of finding land to build on. And, there, we reach the objective of zero net artificialization [ZAN] of soils, provided for in the Climate and Resilience Law. This land crisis was accentuated by the ZAN, implemented in a very brutal way: it’s a mistake!

Should we return to this objective or “regionalize” it?

Housing policy is a policy of proximity. The “housing” law in preparation is a text which should lead us to greater decentralization. And I use this term deliberately: if we decentralize, we entrust responsibility to the local. Urban planning policy is done in a chain. Listen carefully: the basis of land is the Sraddet, the regional plans for planning, sustainable development and territorial equality. These documents voted on by the regions then determine at the regional level the territorial coherence plan on the basis of which the local intercommunal town planning program is voted. You can imagine the administrative logorrhea! Can’t our town planning documents be simplified? What is the cost of all this? We pay fortunes to consulting firms for studies of all kinds. Then, the aid for the stone must come down to the level of the person who is responsible for housing policy. Finally, the question of the place of mayors arises. I think they must be at the heart of the population strategy of their municipality.

With the abolition of the housing tax, haven’t mayors lost a housing policy tool? Why would they agree to build more, which requires more public services in front, since they no longer have the associated tax revenue?

Regarding the housing tax, there is an essential question: with its abolition, part of the population has today become purely consumers of municipal public services and is no longer associated with the life of the city. I am part of a school of thought for which free is not a good thing. Behind responsibility, there is participation. We could have imagined something other than the pure and simple abolition of the housing tax.