The president of Rennes Métropole and mayor of Rennes, Nathalie Appéré (Socialist Party), presented, Thursday evening February 2, strategic orientations “disruptive” for the local housing program (PLH) 2023-2028. It is a question of responding to a triple challenge: real estate prices have soared by 17% in three years; the metropolis is gaining 5,000 inhabitants per year, mainly due to births; and although social housing is plentiful, 26,000 applications are pending, a record. Finally, the consultation of the inhabitants organized upstream showed ” a clear demand for regulation and public control”, reminded M.me Appeared to elected metropolitan officials.
The strategy consists of creating 5,000 housing units per year, including 1,250 social housing units. Any program of 5 or more dwellings (instead of the current 15 dwellings) must include a share of social housing and/or social home ownership. For this, the metropolis relies on the real solidarity lease (BRS), a system created by the Alur law of 2014 and which it experimented with success from the outset: housing is offered, subject to means, up to 30% below market prices thanks to a reduced VAT rate and a dissociation between the building, which the buyer buys, and the land, for which he pays a monthly rent. In return, he will not be able to make a capital gain on resale, which protects the housing thus created from skyrocketing prices.
Nathalie Appéré intends, with the PLH, to take a new step: to generalize the dissociation of land and buildings to all housing built on public land, and to set maximum selling prices. “If, as we think, we can use the construction lease system, it can go very quickly”, she believes. The idea being to maximize this tool by buying land.
“We are reserved”
These orientations were validated by the metropolitan councillors, with 91 votes in favor and 21 abstentions. Jean-Pierre Savignac, mayor (Horizons) of Cesson-Sévigné, abstained “waiting to find out if the means will be given to the municipalities to welcome the new inhabitants planned, without harming those already installed”. Concerning the projected land-building dissociation, he fears that “this system discourages housing manufacturers”.
On the side of the Breton branch of the Federation of real estate developers, “we are reservedexplains its president, Nicolas Verpeaux. To compensate for the fact that owners will only be able to resell at controlled prices for eighteen years, these homes must be offered at a price that is more attractive than market prices. However, it is very complicated, given the current rise in construction costs. We are working with Rennes Métropole, notably with the idea of saving money by creating a right of use rather than ownership of parking spaces”.
The system is judged ” interesting ” by Pascal Spaeter, member of the Rennes residents’ collective Coudurr, which opposes densification. “Is it really necessary to create 5,000 housing units per year, or as much as the increase in the number of inhabitants? »