“Good will is no longer enough, there must be rules and obligations to get the housing problem under control,” Minister for Home Affairs Taina Bofferding stressed on Tuesday morning. She joined our colleagues from RTL Radio for an interview.
According to Bofferding, there are five “puzzle pieces” to do this: Article 29bis of the Housing Pact 2.0 stipulates that more affordable housing space must be developped and that those buildings must remain in public ownership.
The purpose of the building land agreement is to prevent parcels of land from going idle when they may be developed.
The “ministerial consolidation” is meant to prevent individual landowners from blocking a major development project. Their plots will be “relocated” to a location where they are no longer an issue for the project.
The Minister seeks to combat speculation with a property tax reform, while also streamlining procedures and reducing wait times. The Minister, on the other hand, did not want to specify when the property tax reform will be implemented.
The building land agreement is still being worked on, according to Bofferding, and the draft bill “is making its way through the official channels”. Due to a formal opposition by the Council of State, the Ministry still needs to adapt the law. The law is meant to prevent construction land from sitting idle when it could be developed. If no infrastructure has been developed after four years, the draft bill allows for a variety of sanctions to be imposed. According to Bofferding, the exact criteria are currently being amended, which is “not easy from a legal standpoint”. However, the Minister made it clear that she has no plans to withdraw the draft bill.
The most important thing, according to Bofferding, is that “people can once again afford to live in Luxembourg.” The Minister acknowledged that it is “not normal” for people to have to spend the majority of their income on housing, i.e., paying off their mortgage. “We need fundamental changes,” said Bofferding.
Article 29bis of the Housing Pact 2.0 has been in effect for about two months and mandates the construction of more affordable housing when new neighbourhoods are developed. For developments with five to nine flats, the percentage is at least 10%. For projects with ten to 25 flats, the rate rises to at least 15%, and for projects with more than 25 flats, it rises to at least 20%.
Furthermore, the dwellings must remain in public hands. The state will step in if the municipalities refuse to take control. Affordable rental based on factors such as a person’s income is one option, as is the cheaper sale of housing without the land. The municipality or state will also maintain the right of repurchase, ensuring that the dwelling remains in public hands and can be resold to other individuals as affordable housing.
Bofferding concluded that it must no longer be possible to profit from affordable housing space.
