Green light from deputies to perpetuate the SRU system, with adjustments

This subject was the subject of several hours of debates within the framework of the first reading examination of the so-called "3DS" bill, a vast collection of measures aimed at improving relations between the State and the communities, already examined. by the Senate.

A pillar of public efforts to promote social diversity, the SRU law (for urban solidarity and renewal) of December 2000 is also the subject of numerous complaints by the municipalities which cannot or do not want to achieve the objectives, at the risk of financial sanctions.

The objective is to "reconcile the need for housing, continue the effort of social mix and take into account the constraints of the municipalities", estimated Olivier Becht (Agir group, ally of the majority).

The text perpetuates, beyond its 2025 deadline, the legal rate for social housing - 20 or 25% depending on the territory, depending on the level of rental tension.

"Catch-up targets" are planned for municipalities that are lagging behind, with adaptation methods for those encountering "objective difficulties".

Certain adjustments are planned to adapt the exemption criteria, for example to better take into account the lack of attractiveness of certain municipalities, or to take into account a weak demand for social housing.

The text also provides, to take into account the difficulties of certain municipalities, that they can enter into a "social mix contract" with the State and the inter-municipal authorities. These contracts "meet the needs of differentiation and territorialization exposed by many municipalities", argued the Minister of Housing Emmanuelle Wargon.

The bill also provides for strengthening financial penalties for municipalities that do not meet the criteria set by law.

As of January 1, 2019, out of 2.091 municipalities affected by the SRU law, 767 had reached the target, 1.100 were in deficit and 224 were exempt.

Former Minister of Housing Sylvia Pinel (Libertés et Territoires group) supported the measured project submitted to deputies, stressing that the SRU system should only be touched with "vigilance and parsimony".

Thibault Bazin (LR), however, underlined that this law "did not produce only happy effects", and highlighted the problem in places of "the creation of neighborhoods with 100% social housing, which does not create coeducation".

At the very end of the session, shortly before midnight, the Communist Stéphane Peu succeeded in passing an amendment prohibiting the sale of social housing in towns that did not comply with the objectives of the SRU law, so as not to reduce the number of these housing.

Mrs. Wargon and the LREM rapporteur Mickaël Nogal, unfavorable to this amendment, argued that it could prevent, in these municipalities, the sale of social housing to tenants wishing to access property.