These municipal charters who kill the development of housing in France | EUROtoday

On Jun 3, 2025

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LE April 30, the Ministry of Housing printed its month-to-month knowledge on the development of recent housing. The figures affirm the withdrawal of the sector: with 335,400 dwellings licensed over the past 12 months, there are 8 % much less collective housing in comparison with final 12 months, and a fall of just about 30 % in comparison with the 12 months previous the well being disaster. In giant metropolises, the place demand is the strongest, this decline generally reaches greater than 50 % in comparison with the pre-Pandemic interval.

This pre-Cavid interval was, nevertheless, that of the historic figures for the sale of recent housing, even when it was germinating the present disaster. If the start-ups have been maintained at a excessive stage till 2020, the variety of licensed dwellings (that’s to say the variety of constructing permits issued) couldn’t observe. And throughout this era, many communities confirmed their need to extra carefully body the brand new development on their territory, past the straightforward native city plan (PLU).

The federation of actual property builders spoke, in June 2020, of the “hostile” angle of native authorities in the direction of the brand new development of collective housing. The municipal ecological group of Bordeaux, elected in 2020, had even campaigned on a “moratorium on major real estate projects”, earlier than recovering and speaking about “reorientation” in opposition to the induced outcry.

Supervise new development

This splendid interval for actual property promotion was that of the multiplication of “promoting charters”. This generic identify covers a a number of actuality, which might be summarized as follows: a doc arrange by the group to oversee new development and enhance its high quality. First confidential, these charters have been generalized within the tense areas.

The Consulting Office Consulting Inrevefa recognized round fifty on the territory in 2018. “The charter creates an exchange framework between the different stakeholders of a construction project: promoter, lessor, architect, commune, inhabitants and residents”, explains the municipality of Saint-Germain-en-Laye, within the Yvelines.

“What could appear as an anecdotal and marginal phenomenon seems to be a widespread practice”, observes the Court of Auditors in its report “The delivery of building permits, a complex course in an unstable framework”, printed in September 2024. “The promoting charters are presented as documents with an educational vocation to express in accessible language the content of the PLU regulations, continues the Court. The idea being that the citizens, sometimes residents of construction projects, can be perfectly informed of the requirements of the town hall with regard to the petitioners. In fact, these documents sometimes include provisions contrary to the PLU [densité par exemple]. »»

By going beyond the recommendations of the PLU, these charters allow municipalities to impose the use of certain materials, a typology of housing (large family housing for example), or even an exit price. So many characteristics that cannot be included in town planning documents.

A disguised constraint

If, on paper, the provisions of those charters should not binding, in actuality, the promoters should undergo it in the event that they wish to see their signed constructing allow.

“Indeed, these documents are not enforceable, the only opposable document is the PLU. But there are many other mobilizable levers if a mayor does not wish to sign a building permit, without having to mobilize these charters, “assumes Adrien Delacroix, deputy mayor of Saint-Denis and territorial advisor delegated to housing, land, town planning and the development of Plaine Commune. This territorial public establishment, which brings together eight municipalities in Seine-Saint-Denis, is one of the precursors with a “new quality construction convention” created greater than fifteen years in the past.

“For several years, the promoters were ready to make significant financial efforts to enter a territory. They were ready to use bio -based materials, or even increase ceiling heights that can go as far as losing a floor on the project. But if we are imposed on too many constraints, the project is no longer profitable, and it must be abandoned. This is more and more often happening, ”explains Norbert Fanchon, Chairman of the Management Board of the Gambetta group, a promoter who builds a number of hundred housing per 12 months.Read too Housing disaster: the federal government trapped by its DPEWith the true property disaster during which the nation has been sinking for the reason that finish of the well being disaster, sure communities resign sure provisions of their constitution. This is the case of Nice and its “charter for the architectural quality of real estate production and the ecological performance of buildings”, which, in line with some promoters, would have given up asking for ceiling heights of greater than three meters to keep away from failing the tasks.

Certain requests from communities, equivalent to pure lighting of moist rooms, are virtually unimaginable to implement by the promoters. “The goal is never to hinder construction. Our Housing Quality Convention must allow the release of operations. Promoters can “draw” from a number of provisions registered within the settlement to acquire sufficient factors to validate their challenge. It is apparent that we can not ask every thing to the promoters, ”defends Adrien Delacroix, of a standard plain.

No query, subsequently, of obliging challenge leaders each to make use of bio -based supplies, to inexperienced all of the roofs and to naturally illuminate the loos. “The owners must be able to express themselves,” notes the elected official of Saint-Denis.

Contested legality

The legality of those charters raises questions. “Each time the judge was seized to denounce abusive constraints imposed on promoters, the charters of the communities were censored”, denounced, in July 2024, Pascal Boulanger, president of the Federation of Real Estate Promoters.

To uncover

The kangaroo of the day

Answer

In January 2023, the Rouen administrative court docket had canceled a deliberation of the town council of the town of Bois-Guillaume (Seine-Maritime) which had accredited a “charter of town planning and the living environment”. The administrative judges had thought-about that the municipality had not competent to take prescriptions when it comes to city planning, that are supposed to fall beneath the native intercommunal city plan.

The court docket had additionally judged that the municipality was not competent to supply crucial guidelines regarding the design and realization of development tasks “which, by their nature, fall under the field of law or regulation”. “The charters fall under pure ideology, in particular on the typologies of housing that we are forced to produce: in many municipalities, we are forced to build large family housing that will not find buyers,” concludes a promoter who prefers to stay nameless.

https://www.lepoint.fr/immobilier/ces-chartes-communales-qui-tuent-la-construction-de-logements-en-france-03-06-2025-2591106_31.php