Participatory housing, an alternative way of life

The association Habitat Participatif France, which brings together around fifty associative and professional structures, lists 965 projects in 2023, including 406 completed, i.e. a "potential of around 9.700 housing units", reports Ludovic Parenty, its national coordinator, who reports growth of "18% per year".

A micro-niche in comparison with the 418.800 building permit authorizations issued over the last 12 months, according to the latest statistics from the ministry.

It should be noted that 70% of the projects are carried out by the inhabitants in self-promotion, and 30% in partnership with professional owners, mostly HLM organisations.

Main characteristics according to Mr. Parenty: "the existence of a collective of inhabitants upstream of the project, the presence of private and shared spaces and self-management by the inhabitants of the common spaces".

"Participatory housing has an image of innovation, research and development of what the housing of tomorrow could be", he observes.

Inhabitant participation was put into practice from the XNUMXth century with the Familistère de Guise, in the Aisne, recalls Odile Guillemot, former co-president of Habitat Participatif France.

This workers' city inspired by Charles Fourier's phalanstery was built by the industrialist Godin to house his workers.

After the Second World War, the spontaneous and informal Castor movement emerged in the face of the serious housing shortage. Mutual aid is the key word: the inhabitants join together to build their house together to go faster and reduce costs.

In May 1968, the tendency was to reject established models. Inhabitants create the first self-managed grouped habitats which will develop until the 1990s. Families come together to build private dwellings around common spaces.

“We are moving from mutual aid to solidarity,” underlines Ms. Guillemot. Housing is managed cooperatively by residents who pool services in a spirit of economy and cooperation.

Between 1990 and 2005, interest in participatory housing decreased and only returned in force at the end of the 2000s, when real estate prices soared.

The term "participatory habitat" was finally consecrated in 2010 during national meetings organized in Strasbourg and replaced that of "self-managed grouped habitat", considered obsolete.

A national coordination of the movement appeared in 2013 and the Alur law gave two possibilities of legal status to participatory housing a year later.

Among the values ​​claimed: solidarity, pooling of resources, respect for the environment and intergenerational diversity.

Today, there are participatory housing projects almost everywhere in France, with a predominance in the West, the South-East and the Ile-de-France.

The average duration of the projects is four years, according to Habitat Participatif France, for about ten housing units per project.

More than half (57%) of the projects are in rural areas and 50% are in new construction against only 30% in rehabilitation.

Illustrative image of the article via Depositphotos.com.