Mayors caught between a rock and a hard place on social housing

In Vincennes, a town of 50.000 inhabitants that covers only 2 km2, or "the density of Manhattan," according to Mayor Charlotte Libert, the first challenge was to find land.

"We looked at all the opportunities and used all the pre-emption tools possible (...) to increase the proportion of social housing from 7% to 13%," the elected official explained at the annual congress of social landlords.

But the denser it is, the more complicated it is. "We had to go up, to make it thicker, but we couldn't disturb the residents who were already there too much, while still providing them with something positive," emphasizes the UDI councilor, who has nevertheless faced a number of appeals.

Bringing something "positive" initially meant, she says, "building beautifully" to include social housing at the foot of the Château de Vincennes, but also opening to the public the gardens of the houses pre-empted by the town hall to build social housing.

In Strasbourg, the Green mayor Jeanne Barseghian also had to face the anger of her constituents, despite a list of applicants for social housing that has grown from 20.000 to 30.000 in the metropolis in five years.

"There is this paradox of being approached almost every day by residents who need housing, while at the same time being sued by opponents of concreting, even when it comes to building student housing," she says, recalling that in Strasbourg, "one in four residents lives below the poverty line."

According to her, resolving the equation requires better consultation, but also a stronger requirement "vis-à-vis landlords and developers on architectural quality and the proportion of open land to avoid over-densifying the city."

Rebalancing

In Chanteloup-les-Vignes, Mayor Catherine Arenou is calling for "total power for mayors over the population policy" of social housing.

In fifteen years, this working-class town in the Yvelines region has gone from 76% social housing to 46%, while the population has grown from 8.400 to 10.400 inhabitants.

"We demolished 350 social housing units, rebuilt some social housing units in a much more harmonious way, as well as 650 private housing units, for home ownership or intermediate rental, an offer that did not exist before," says the DVD elected official.

As a result, "more than 60% of social housing residents have continued their residential journey there," assures the mayor, who sees her mission as "giving people the freedom to stay or leave."

Echirolles, a working-class town on the outskirts of Grenoble, has the highest rate (45%) of social housing in the Isère department, a legacy of its history.

"We went from 3.000 inhabitants to 37.000 inhabitants between 1946 and 1980 with the creation of large housing estates, with 100% social housing," recalls the communist elected representative Amandine Demore.

The first challenge was to renovate large housing projects without stopping social housing, even though Ms. Demore questions the lack of inter-municipal solidarity, with some municipalities, according to her, making "no effort" to create social housing.

To avoid turning social housing into "ghettos" or creating a "segregated geography of rents" within the social housing stock, Rennes city hall is experimenting with a single rent for tenants.

"A policy of population and social cohesion is the responsibility of local elected officials, and it is indeed the mayors who are held accountable when there is a territorial imbalance, a lack of diversity, and the dysfunctions that go with it," explains the first mayor, Nathalie Appéré (PS), even if the experiment is "perhaps not replicable everywhere," according to her.