To combat poor housing “we will have to renovate a lot and mobilize vacant housing”declared Wednesday February 2 on franceinfo Christine Leconte, president of the national council of the Order of architects, while the Abbé Pierre Foundation publishes this Wednesday its report on the results of Emmanuel Macron’s five-year term in terms of housing.
franceinfo: Is the construction of social housing the solution to remedy this crisis?
Christine Leconte: This construction effort must be continued and intensified. It will also be necessary to renovate enormously and mobilize vacant housing, the exact figure of which is unknown. It is sometimes estimated that there are up to 3 million vacant homes in France, so enough to house everyone. We have a housing policy that is old and that does not see housing as a set of criteria. We must look at where the accommodation is located, if it is close to his work, in particular. We must think about housing with a policy that is not only quantitative.
How many apartments are there to renovate? Who is concerned ?
We are talking about 12 million French people weakened by fuel poverty. We don’t have enough money to do the overall renovations and they have to be done within 10 years. There is also unsanitary housing and I salute the Abbé Pierre Foundation for the proposal it is making on unfit housing and unsanitary buildings in the heart of the city so that they can be renovated quickly. There is a real lever to make it possible to destock vacant housing which is extremely important.
By doing this, will housing remain accessible to students and low-income families?
Yes it is possible and that is why housing must be one of the subjects of this presidential campaign. It’s still the first thing that affects each of us, so making housing accessible is necessary. We will have to regulate the price of land, it is an enormous burden in the price of housing, we must also limit the cost of carrying operations so that it does not exceed 10% whereas today it goes up to to 30% for expenses in real estate development. We also need to work on better quality housing. There are 1 million people who live in overcrowded conditions and today we need this vital space on a daily basis.
Has the quality of our houses, our apartments dropped?
We built differently. Housing has become an economic product. In 60 years, the French have grown by 7 cm and the ceiling height of housing has dropped by almost 60 cm. It is a question of economic profitability. Everyone can see it. We limited the size of the living rooms, the bedrooms, reduced the common areas, removed the windows in the bathrooms. All these parameters mean that housing is not just quantitative but also qualitative.