The cost of construction is the second scapegoat

Housing cost too expensive in France November 23 at the Pavilion of the Arsenal in Paris, ING Real Estate Development France, subsidiary of the Dutch Banking Group ING and the Ile-de-France Federation of builders sponsors together developers, planners, businesses, architects and design offices to answer this question through the comparative study of housing in France and Holland operations. The present French holstered their chauvinism to examine point by point the dysfunctions often denounced by their foreign counterparts. The most common criticism concerns the realization and poor finishes compared for example with housing delivered to the Netherlands or Germany and the final cost too much.

First guilty: field. It may in France up to 50 or even more than the cost of production in Paris or in downtowns where land is not available. While the price of public plots could be controlled by local communities, some of them do not hesitate to auction this rare material. "At the Netherlands municipal land companies exist to avoid this kind of speculation," explains Paul Koch, President of ING Real Estate Development France. Has France of long date effective land public institutions, in Rennes or Lorraine, others have been put in place more recently, in the Yvelines, Hauts-de-Seine, but it will take years to create land reserves. Large landowners are also shown on the finger: France rail network, the RATP and other public enterprises have brownfield they slow to put on the market, for administrative reasons, or because they are waiting the right time to sell.

Stop at "any concrete."

The cost of construction is the second scapegoat. In imposing one, or even two parking lots by housing, - Marseille time required three-, the cities also increased the invoice. These infrastructures are "sold at a loss, 10,000 to 12,000 euros at a cost of more construction of 15,000" say some promoters. Nancy, for an operation combining housing, offices and shops, the architect Alexandre Chemetoff chose to store vehicles in a silo of 700 places building, or 1.2 by housing, intended to respond both to the deficit of parking in the neighbourhood, the needs of the future inhabitants and clients of the new businesses. Many planners denounce "double speech of cities who plead for sustainable development while reluctance to reduce the quota of parking.

The lack of competition between the three majors of the building, Vinci, Bouygues and Eiffage is also regularly recalled as inflationary factor. "This is not true: for housing operations, developers are often appeal to other" claims Hervé Manet, Icade and the Ile-de-France builders developers Federation President. The France is also penalized by its culture of "any concrete." The alternatives of wood or steel in industrial sectors not sufficiently developed grow companies do not even ask the question. Acoustic and thermal insulation of the round table, requirements would increase the cost of 5 to 20 and UI ' is less said because politically incorrect - the Act on disability requiring to install elevators and construct common portions and larger traffic surfaces. "In the residence student where 90 of the tenants are young and healthy, why apply this regulation" asked a developer.

Finally the architects are not spared: the masters of French work are criticized for object design brilliant but little viable economically to the banality of affordable construction. In the Netherlands, where the quality of the architecture is unanimously recognized the often repetitive form of buildings to industrialize manufacturing processes. This idea which reminds France Reconstruction and costs that the policy of the city in fact today is never raised with kindness.

The cost of the sale

Developers complain about having to finance a portion of the cost of social housing that many cities impose now in each new operation, under the solidarity and urban renewal (SRU) Act passed in 2000. The cost impact is twofold: first, the size of apartments is not the same, this requirement équilibristes numbers architects to stay behind the same facades of very different typologies, large and small surfaces to unequal comfort. Above all, this forced mix is to balance the low price of social housing - imposed - by those units sold on the open market. Equalization which translates the increase in prices for sales to private purchasers.

Last obstacle to a decline in selling prices: the Organization of sale networks, a good French specialty. More than half of new homes are marketed as products of seduction by networks "standing sale", banks or managers of heritage. Even though they defend, almost all developers use these machines for sale. Their effectiveness at a price. Some compensate by increasing the total cost of 10 to 15 housing coming burdening addition already Jig by financial costs, insurance, advertising, and the margin of the proponents. It has certainly declined, but no company is waived.