Participatory housing, a solidarity alternative to “control costs”

“Fed up with concrete, want to be green”, and then a “ray of sunshine” on the vineyards which finally convinced him: Antoine Bacha fell in love with a property in Perréon, a village of 1.500 inhabitants in heart of Beaujolais, less than an hour from Lyon.

The kind of “impossible” property to buy alone.

The 35-year-old engineer was the first to register, in December 2021, to participate in this group housing project. Individual housing, with common spaces and the sharing of ecological and community life.

Two old buildings, including a 17th century school, are renovated for apartments and a collective boiler room. Three individual houses have been added, and all benefit from a large garden and its two sequoias.

In Lyon, where he works, Antoine Bacha could only have afforded a small apartment. Here, he “purchased a global service”. “By living collectively, we know that we will share certain expenses,” he adds.

"Global cost"

This project is overseen by the Cologi association, an organization which brings group housing projects to life, from the search for properties to support on governance, including the formation of the group.

For its founder, Gilles Lambert, the formula “is a way of lowering the cost price of the building”.

However, he regrets that we are "polarizing" on the purchase price, and encourages us to "think about the overall cost": use of sustainable and ecological materials, pooling of equipment or travel.

The creation of common areas - living room, laundry room, library, guest bedroom, or even vegetable garden - enlarges the living space at a lower cost.

“It’s a way to access quality housing,” also believes Michèle Tortonese, member of the Habicoop Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes college, a structure which promotes residents’ cooperatives, another form of participatory housing.

The formula has attracted municipalities wishing to control land, including outside large cities. In France, the number of projects has grown by 20% each year since 2018, and a quarter of them are carried out in partnership with local authorities, according to the 2023 report from Habitat participatif France. Half are in the city, the other half in the countryside.

"Aberration"

Estelle Arnaud is mayor of Puy-Saint-André (Hautes-Alpes), a village of 470 inhabitants in Briançonnais, near the ski resorts. Here, accommodation is preferably rented to tourists, at a higher price. A phenomenon that “municipalities don’t really have the tools to limit,” she laments.

“Shared housing is one of the answers we found,” explains the councilor, who has reserved communal land for a participatory housing project.

“If people who work here are forced to go and find accommodation 20 kilometers away, where rents are affordable, where they can build, it’s an aberration,” she explains.

The idea also appealed to the town of Faverges-Seythenex (Haute-Savoie), south of Lake Annecy, which made land from the town hall available for such a project, in the form of a long lease or lease. to construction.

With the aim of “controlling costs”, and “so that people with average incomes can still access property”, explains Martine Beaumont, deputy mayor.

“We are a territory in which there is an aging population and we have difficulty stabilizing young people in our territory. The idea is really to help them acquire property and stay with us,” emphasizes -She.

The fact remains that participatory housing is particularly attractive due to its philosophy.

Nicolas and Guillaume Antoine-Gaioni, 46 years old, the latest arrivals in Perréon, even paid a little more than for their original project of +tiny house+ or light housing.

“It’s more expensive than we would have liked to pay,” concedes Nicolas. “It’s really the solidarity aspect that brought us here.”