Right of veto on the allocation of social housing: Guillaume Kasbarian “trusts mayors”, associations fear “electoral clientelism”

The bill relating to the development of the supply of affordable housing presented on Friday provides, in particular, to strengthen the power of elected officials in the allocation of social housing.

“I trust the mayors”, repeats Sunday May 5 on France Inter Guillaume Kasbarian, Minister Delegate in charge of Housing. The bill relating to the development of the supply of affordable housing which he presented on Friday to the Council of Ministers plans in particular to strengthen the power of city councilors over the allocation of social housing, a demand of many elected officials, in particular on the right .

Thus, article 2 of the text provides that mayors can, for new social housing, rank the candidates in order of preference and veto an application, provided however that they provide reasons for this choice. But the five main HLM tenant associations fear a “electoral patronage or even a national preference” in a context of rise of the far right.

A “common sense” measure

“Let’s not create irrational mistrust of mayors”, retorted Guillaume Kasbarian on Sunday on France Inter. He assures that there will be safeguards, since the veto must be justified. The minister defends a “common sense measure” aimed at “encourage” has “sign building permits and build more housing”. Only mayors who have “already exceeded a certain stock of social housing” in their municipality, will have “the power to chair the allocation commissions”, he explains.

Nowadays, “mayors already attend social housing allocation commissions”, would like to underline the Minister Delegate responsible for Housing. Local elected officials, prefecture services, social housing reservists (Action Logement, Caisse des Dépôts, etc.) are represented in these commissions where the profiles of candidates are examined. “You don’t see the name, they are numbers. We describe the income of the people, the number of people in the household, whether there are children or not, whether these people are in the social housing or not. .. You have lots of anonymized information”explains Guillaume Kasbarian.

A logic of “decentralization”

But he regrets that mayors have a “reduced role” in these committees. For example, “they do not have the possibility of classifying the profiles according, for example, to the fact that they are residents of the municipality”. However, continues Guillaume Kasbarian, the government, in its “logic of decentralization”, wishes that the mayors “have the feeling that they can meet the needs of its inhabitants and their children in the territory”.

Because, according to him, mayors express a feeling of powerlessness when it comes to allocating social housing. “How do you then expect them to be motivated to sign the building permits?”, asks Guillaume Kasbarian. He therefore hopes, if the bill is adopted, the “motivate”THE “encourage” to build more social housing.

More generally, the Minister for Housing is pleased to have presented a bill without “no new obligation, new tax, new constraint, new complexity for mayors”.