In the middle of a heatwave, the Senate began examining the government’s housing bill, with criticized measures such as the re-rental of poorly insulated homes.
While France is going through a new episode of extreme heat, the Senate is examining a hot bill to say the least on housing. At the heart of the debates: a temporary relaxation of the ban on renting energy strainers and several measures aimed at better adapting the building stock to heat waves.
Its examination takes place in a particularly sensitive context for the construction and renovation sector, where debates around thermal strainersfinancing of the works andadaptation of the building to heat waves intensify as the heatwave episodes multiply.
The return of thermal strainers?
Placed at the last minute on the agenda of the upper house, the housing bill was to be adopted this Wednesday evening by a Senate largely dominated by the right and the center. If the text covers several aspects of the housing policyit is its approach to energy renovation which concentrates most of the criticism. In the middle of a heatwave, the parliamentary calendar gives particular resonance to a debate which opposes the imperatives of energy transition to the difficulties encountered by owners in undertaking work.
Summer comfort enters the text
The climate context also led senators to enrich the bill on a subject largely absent from its initial version:adaptation of housing to high heat. Several amendments thus provide forintegrate the notion of “summer comfort” into the criteria defining an efficient renovationbut also in the multi-year work plans of the co-ownerships.
Another notable development, the opinion of the Architects of Buildings of France for the installation of exterior solar protection would no longer be binding, in order to facilitate the implementation of devices intended to limit summer overheating. © Magnific
Environmentalist senator Yannick Jadot, however, criticized the government for “discover during the heatwave that it would be necessary to integrate the question of summer habitability” in his bill.
Five years of respite for housing classified F and G
The most sensitive measure nevertheless concerns the approximately 700,000 housing classified F or G in the energy performance diagnosis. The text provides for authorizing their rental for a maximum period of five years, provided that the owner has initiated a renovation process. This must be materialized by signing a contract with a company and paying a deposit.
For the Minister of Housing, Vincent Jeanbrunthis provision constitutes “a win-win partnership” for owners and tenants alike. He defends a “courageous decision” likely to cause a real “renovation shock“. For Dominique Estrosi Sassone, the president of the Senate Economic Affairs Committee, who agrees with the minister, the project constitutes a “useful text” And “faithful to the expectations of the territories“, even if he “will not solve the housing crisis alone“.
However, for their part, the tenant defense associations on the contrary denounce a major setback:
– the National Housing Confederation (CNL) accuses the government of wanting “save thermal kettles” while “France is suffocating” ;
– The Housing for All platform believes that the executive is seeking to “protect the rent of landlords by sacrificing exposed tenants, without consideration of human damage“, and called for mobilization before the Senate.
Mayors demand more powers
Beyond energy renovation, the text also includes a section devoted to the allocation of social housing. The Senate wishes to strengthen the role of local elected officials by granting them a justified right of veto on certain attributions, without limiting it only to cases of disturbances to public order, as proposed by the government.
In a column published by The Tribuneseveral dozen mayors lent their support to the bill, calling on the state to “trust“to communities by transferring them”real levers” action.
