For Gary Diderich, co-spokesperson for déi Lénk, the government’s action on housing is simply a continuation of a policy that has been known for years and whose result is to make investment increasingly profitable to the detriment of the needs of the population--and therefore to the hopes and dreams of affordable housing. In his view, giving tax breaks to owners and investors by relieving them of their obligations, particularly environmental obligations, is not the right approach. “The housing crisis won’t be solved by private developers,” he says, adding that it’s up to the state and local authorities to take responsibility for ensuring that affordable housing is no longer a niche market.
Paperjam: What do you think of the current government's housing policy?
Gary Diderich: They are putting a lot of measures in place, but measures that are mainly in favour of developers, investors and people who can afford to buy a home. These measures do nothing to guarantee an increase in the stock of affordable housing in the medium and long term, a stock that represents just 1.4% of the total housing stock. And this proportion is falling year on year. The number of affordable homes per 100 inhabitants has fallen since 2021. Public housing remains a niche.
Housing minister (DP) has just announced a reform of the law on affordable housing and promises . This is totally unrealistic. It’s a sham. He thinks this target is achievable because he’s counting on the action of the local authorities, but at the moment, apart from the big cities, the local authorities don’t have the means to influence the construction of affordable housing. And I’m not talking about financial resources, but about human resources. That’s where the problem lies. If we were to allocate between two and three million euros a year to local authorities and non-profit associations to recruit staff capable of setting up projects, we could then achieve the 500 homes promised by Claude Meisch. Why isn’t this being done?
Why do you think the targets set by governments for housing in general (and affordable housing in particular) won’t be achieved?
It’s simple: governments don’t intervene where it could change things, i.e. on land and rents.
Land is currently largely in the hands of private developers. The state and local authorities own 18.4% of the total 5,707 hectares of land available for building. And this land is either fallow land or land that is difficult to develop and impossible to use within five years. They don’t have the resources. And when it comes to protecting tenants, there’s nothing. There is still no cap on rising rents. A system does exist, but it is not effectively applied. Rents must comply with the law and not bend unconditionally to the laws of the market.
You mention rent caps. According to what criteria should this be done?
As the current law provides, it should be based on the capital invested, but neutralising the speculative part.
How?
You have to go back to the prices charged in the 1990s. This was a turning point when rents began to rise much faster than the construction index. It is this difference between the rise in rents and the rise in the construction index that needs to be neutralised. We tabled a bill to this effect in 2017. It is ready to be voted on.
What other emergency measures should be taken?
The percentages of affordable housing in the PAPs must be increased. The current percentage is far too low. Developers should provide 30% of affordable rental units to be transferred to public developers for all PAPs of more than 10 housing units. For PAPs of between five and nine units, the rate should be 15%.
As developers of towns and neighbourhoods, local authorities are the ideal builders of housing. They must be given the means to do so. And eventually a minimum rate of affordable rental housing for all municipalities must be introduced.
Finally, we need to create a public construction company that gives public developers the means to achieve their ambitions, a company they can rely on for their priority projects. Such a company would also have a positive impact on employment and working conditions throughout the construction sector.
This article in French.