Should we trust mayors to build social housing or compel them by law? In December 2000, the Jospin government chose the second option by passing the law on urban solidarity and renewal (SRU). Its most important article, the 55, imposed on all municipalities to achieve in twenty years a rate of 20% of social housing on their territory.
Considered as a marker of the left, this quota policy supposed to promote social diversity still grinds some teeth, in particular on the side of the right and local elected officials, little inclined to be imposed such obligations by the Jacobin state. Two decades after its establishment, however, the criticisms it suffered have softened considerably. Perhaps because after fifteen years of application, hindsight shows a relative effectiveness of the device, confirmed by the last triennial report. published by the Ministry of Territorial Cohesion, at the end of 2017.
1. Construction is progressing
Never have the municipalities built so much social housing as in the last period analyzed by the ministry (2014-2016): they fulfilled 106% of their objectives for the period, with nearly 190,000 constructions.
2. Many municipalities are late
Paradoxically, despite the progress, the number of municipalities that do not meet their quota of social housing is growing steadily. There are two main reasons for this:
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Some formerly exempt communes fall over time under the SRU law when their population grows or when they join intermunicipalities.
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The recent reform of the law, carried out in 2013 by Cécile Duflot, increased from 20% to 25% the social housing quota for most municipalities, which complicated the task of those approaching 20%. By lowering the threshold for the application of the law in Ile-de-France to 1,500 inhabitants, it has submitted many new municipalities to it.
How the law works
The Urban Solidarity and Renewal Act (SRU) initially set a target of 20% social housing for municipalities by 2020. It was increased to 25% by 2025 by the Duflot reform of 2013.
These quotas only apply to municipalities of at least 3,500 inhabitants (a threshold reduced to only 1,500 inhabitants in Ile-de-France) which belong to an agglomeration or an inter-municipality of at least 50,000 inhabitants. Certain municipalities also benefit from exemptions due to their particular situation.
All municipalities that do not respect their quota are set by the State catching-up objectives spread over three-year periods: they trace a trajectory that should allow them to become compliant by 2025.
The Duflot reform added a requirement for municipalities: among new constructions, include at least a third of very social housing and not more than a third of intermediate housing.
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In the last report drawn up by the ministry, there were still 1,152 municipalities which had not reached their quota of social housing. But not all of them are bad students: 503 of them have respected the catching-up objectives that the State had set for them and should reach the quota by 2025 (on condition of continuing their momentum).
3. Bad students are often right wing
The municipalities that pose a problem are the 649 which do not meet their objectives, and which will be subject to fines. Some have succeeded in pleading indulgence with the prefectures, but 269 of them, repeat offenders, will be “deficient”.
This “deficiency” status opens the way to increased financial penalties, but also to coercive measures : the prefects can then take the place of the mayor to order the construction of social housing, for example by issuing building permits or by mobilizing vacant housing in the private park.
These situations are over-represented in Ile-de-France and in the Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur region, where we find the French champion of fines for breach of the SRU law: Le Cannet (Alpes-Maritimes), endowed with barely 7.3% of social housing, must pay nearly 1.4 million euros fine.
Right-wing town halls are the most recalcitrant in meeting their obligations: 71% of deficient municipalities are headed by a right-wing mayor or the UDI. This is the case for the largest of them, Boulogne-Billancourt (Hauts-de-Seine), which only has 14.1% of low-cost housing in its housing stock.
Among the 269 deficient municipalities there are also six communist municipalities (Noves, Contes, Trélissac, Rousson, La Cadière-d’Azur and Saint-Martin-de-Valgalgues) and seventeen socialist town halls.
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