At its annual congress on June 13 and 14, the Sites & Cités association adopted a motion calling on the President of the Republic to implement a major plan to rehabilitate vacant housing in old town centers with a remarkable heritage site. Former mayor of Figeac (Lot) and PS MP, president of the Midi-Pyrénées region for seventeen years and president of the association since 2000, Martin Malvy details the issues of this plan.
“The ills suffered by old centres are well known. What they can bring to society is less well known.” Does this sentence from your motion addressed to the President of the Republic indicate that vacant property is one of the solutions to the current housing crisis?
Martin Malvy: More than that, it is a response to a triptych: ecological crisis, housing crisis, devitalization of urban centers. In the fight against soil sealing, and the objective of zero net artificialization (ZAN), the first thing to do is to focus on existing buildings. It is also a response to the sad fate of old centers, to dilapidated neighborhoods with very high vacancy rates that can sometimes reach 30%. If we want the city to become more attractive, it must be inhabited. We have had thirty to forty years of delirium where we have transported the city outside, by creating travel needs. We have transported hospitals, businesses, etc., to the detriment of old centers. We talk a lot about commerce in revitalization policies, but these are empty speeches if there are no housing policies. And it is a matter of public will! The private sector will rarely pursue massive rehabilitation operations… and business candidates will not settle in deserted territories. Everything starts with housing.
What are the objectives of this plan? Have you quantified it?
MM : We are considering 100,000 to 200,000 homes over a decade. If we deal with between 100 and 200 homes in each department, after ten years we will have completed a great operation. We did not want to freeze ideas around a figure, it will result from the study that we will do initially. But for the number of homes that we are talking about, financing is quite possible, the land can be financed over the very long term by loans. Because there are two aspects to this plan: rehabilitation, but also acquisition, by communities or project leaders, which will allow these operations to be set up. We are talking here about vacant housing, that which is lost, or which is owned by people who do not have the means to rehabilitate it. This is not the same type of housing dealt with by the aid from the National Housing Agency (Anah) or linked to the Action Cœur de Ville (ACV) program.
Why is this housing plan specifically aimed at cities that have a remarkable heritage site?
MM : The elected officials of these territories have taken the step of developing extremely proactive, expensive urban planning plans, making heritage a bet on the future. It would be a fair return for the State to recognize this work by supporting a housing plan. For the past thirty years, we have seen heritage teams emerge, even in very small towns; there has been considerable progress. This public urban planning service must be allowed to breathe, given resources. Without criticizing current programs, such as ACV or Small Towns of Tomorrow, there is still a lack of this recognition from the State for communities that are part of this heritage approach.
The text of the motion refers to “procedures” to be simplified. Which ones?
MM : Complications often arise from the fact that institutional partners working on heritage rehabilitations have a multitude of files to process: when Anah mentions 630,000 renovated homes per year, we can see the workload that this can represent. And the same file often passes through the hands of several partners; we really need to think about these double instructions. This is also one of the major advances brought about by ACV or Petites villes de demain, bringing together around the same table the stakeholders concerned by the same project.
How did the Élysée receive your motion?
MM : We received a response from the President of the Republic, through his office, shortly after sending our text. We were referred to Philippe Bélaval, the President’s cultural advisor, and Sandie Michelis, housing advisor. At the local level, our text was supported by 150 elected officials, sometimes with deliberations in the municipal council. All this goes in the direction of opening a debate on this question of housing in old town centres.
