A text against unworthy housing in the Assembly, without a housing minister

“We have deaths in the streets and still no housing minister. We are weightless,” denounces environmentalist Julien Bayou.

"Technical" and "without a global vision", the text on the program of the Assembly from Monday afternoon to Thursday is nevertheless "welcome", judges the Parisian elected official, in order to fight against "sleep merchants who oppose the work and reign in terror in condominiums.”

Christophe Béchu, the Minister of Ecological Transition and Territorial Cohesion, will be on the government bench. He was already the minister responsible for Patrice Vergriete, who would like to be returned to housing when the government team is completed.

The two parties and their teams are still discussing this bill against "degraded housing" and the 340 amendments tabled, AFP learned.

This text must "simplify judicial and administrative procedures (...) to speed up work on degraded co-ownerships", explained Patrice Vergriete in December. “The longer we delay intervening on a co-ownership in difficulty, the worse it is at the end,” he emphasized.

Between 400.000 and 420.000 housing units in the metropolitan private stock as well as 100.000 in overseas territories are today considered potentially unsanitary or presenting risks to the safety of their inhabitants.

The bill is inspired by a report submitted at the end of October by the mayors of Saint-Denis Mathieu Hanotin (PS) and Mulhouse Michèle Lutz (LR).

Concretely, it provides for the creation of a new procedure for the expropriation of owners of housing affected by a police order (danger or unsanitary order, editor's note), before the situation becomes irremediable and requires the demolition of the property. 'building.

“Social bomb”

To better equip municipalities against the arrival of slumlords, it intends to simplify the use of the right of pre-emption by communities.

In terms of prevention, the text aims to facilitate work ahead of definitive deterioration, for example by creating a collective loan for co-owners, in order to access credit.

It also makes the duty to alert professional trustees more effective and introduces an obligation to inform co-owners or occupants of a building where housing is affected by procedures to combat substandard housing.

The bill finally provides for measures aimed at accelerating the construction of housing within the framework of so-called “national interest” operations, which have a specific legal regime.

“It is a very technical bill, which includes measures going in the right direction but which are limited to co-ownerships while substandard housing also concerns individual housing,” estimates Manuel Domergue, at the Abbé Pierre Foundation .

“The main issue facing substandard housing is not really legislation, but providing operational means for communities to play their role,” he considers.

Rather consensual, the bill was adopted unanimously by those present in committee, in the absence of LFI and the RN at the time of the vote, according to Renaissance rapporteur Lionel Royer-Perreaut. Overall, “I didn’t sense any political posturing or blocking elements,” he adds.

But while there is a serious housing crisis, the deputies will above all once again demand the “major law” promised on the subject. Many elected officials, even the majority, are warning of the “social bomb” underway.

With "degraded housing", the first bill "from the Attal government to be debated is on housing. It is a signal", supports the Macronist deputy Royer-Perreaut.

The Assembly must then examine from January 29 a bill to regulate furnished tourist accommodation such as Airbnb in the face of the housing shortage, he recalls.