Housing: insufficient room for innovation

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In the current context of very constrained public finances, the main path of development available to the housing sector is that of innovation, believes Henry Buzy-Cazaux, founding president of the Institute of Real Estate Services Management. Recalling that “France has one of the most creative housing sectors on the planet”.

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If the consequences were not so serious, we could almost get used to it: the housing sector is in bad shape and the latest indicators published by the French Building Federation, and by notaries in particular, have only updated the reasons for concern. The descent into hell continues for production. Energy renovation is far from being able to constitute a growth driver for building companies. As for existing transactions, they have regained some vigor and the speeches of a few leaders displaying insolent performances do not change the reality in its entirety, which is much darker. It is in this context that the future government will take office, and undoubtedly the next Minister of Housing – we cannot imagine François Bayrou forgetting this portfolio in the organization chart of the government team. Expectations are high, but ultimately not considerable: the sector would be satisfied that the budget as it was at the time of the interruption of parliamentary work due to the fall of Michel Barnier was resumed and voted. He received almost unanimous support.

The fact remains that there will not be enough breath to rekindle a fire on the verge of extinction, and that the means, from budget to budget, will be increasingly lacking, because housing cannot fail to also contribute to the absorption of the deficit. Is this country going to whine incessantly? Will housing stakeholders tirelessly engage in deceptive lobbying, resolving to see their room for financial political maneuver shrink from year to year? Only two paths exist, budgetary audacity so that housing-related activity increases tax revenues and innovation. Before three years and a possible political renewal resulting from the ballot boxes of the presidential election and the legislative elections, which Prime Minister, threatened with censorship every hour, will he risk the audacity? This
country is sentenced to three years of small steps. We can just hope that budgetary sobriety will earn us a more favorable outlook from the markets and that interest rates will be contained or even lowered.

Our country, by wanting to be exemplary, has increased production costs

The other path is that of innovation, and on this path the State and the actors must progress together. This is not the case, far from it. State First deserves much criticism. He promises simplification, and acts in reverse. A recent illustration was given to us by the news, with the cyclone which destroyed a large part of the territory of Mayotte. In the aftermath of the disaster, the National Housing Council had to decide on draft regulatory texts relating to the requirements of decency and comfort in Mayotte. The texts proposed by the ministers of housing and overseas took into account the very degraded health and social situation on the island and proposed adjustments for five years, such as the possibility that housing would not have places to stay. separate comfort and other exceptions to the rules that prevail in mainland France. The CNH has
widely voted for these texts, written before the cyclone but when housing conditions were already
exceptionally hard, because they were realistic.

The Prime Minister went further than simply relaxing construction and decency rules and announced a call for projects to build inexpensive housing. Our country, by wanting to be exemplary, has created requirements that have raised production costs to a level that has become penalizing, and excludes the most vulnerable. More pragmatism is now vital. We must analyze the simplifications implemented in Saint-Denis and surrounding areas so that the Olympic village comes out of the ground in three times less time than any structure anywhere else, and measure whether they cannot be transposed to the thousands of construction sites across the country. Especially since the budgets were kept! In addition, the ephemeral nature of the purpose of the buildings has led to their functional adaptability being planned, in particular the reversibility of offices and housing.

France has one of the most creative housing sectors on the planet

And then there is innovation coming from civil society. We do not recognize it enough and it is a safe bet that the political class will increasingly want it to be exercised and that the professional world will bring its share of solutions to housing problems, even more than they are doing it today. We can legitimately think of that of high prices, which an evolution of construction processes, including thanks to digital models, or even the use of other materials, but also a different land treatment would partly resolve. France has one of the most creative housing sectors on the planet, without it really being felt at the end of the chain. Innovation is also the ability to densify in a gentle and beautiful way, and here again the delay that we have taken is culpable, both in public housing and HLM and in private condominiums, both in new production and there
elevation of the existing building. It is also not normal that politicians could have disqualified the individual house as if its concept had not evolved. : the terraced or two-story house, simple in terms of land use, replaces the pavilion as we knew it. Undoubtedly, professional organizations and leading companies must increase their efforts to drive the entire sector towards innovation, which will not survive without it. These players regularly highlight exemplary achievements through trophies, proving the know-how of our developers, our builders and our renovators. It is time for the wave to carry most of the players further and thus gain independence from public aid.

The associative world is not left out when it comes to innovation and it powerfully inspires the modernization of housing. HLM cooperatives have thus invented since their creation, in addition to a mode of shared housing, many other modalities, such as securing access to property with reversibility clauses towards rental and return to better fortune, to avoid failures in the courses. They are not the only ones to have developed effective social engineering, to the point that an inventory of audacious actions deserves to be drawn up. Innovating is today the collective responsibility of the sector and urgency. Moreover, the role of the next housing ministers is likely to change… Their budgetary power declining, they will have to change into legal facilitators and catalysts for innovation.