Sustainable housing policies Best practice and worst cases in Europe

1. Sustainable housing policiesBest practice and worst cases in Europe IUT Conference Decent and affordable housing in the European Cities Peter Boelhouwer

2. Content • Current reasons for government intervention • Different welfare and housing regimes • Emerging trends in housing policies • Cross-cutting housing challenges and perspectives

3. Current reasons for government intervention • The right of decent housing is a fundamental right (constitutional law and universal declaration of the rights of human beings) • Government is responsible for sufficient affordable, qualitative descent housing on the right place • Minimum quality level • Content: place, production, affordability, distribution, quality • The decline of neo-liberalism; effects of the credit crunch

4. Different welfare regimes in Europe • Liberal • Labour led corporatist • Conservative corporatist • Modern corporatist • Mediterranean • Socialist

5. Main Characteristics of the welfare state • De-commodification • Influence of central government • Degree of political corporatism • Fragmentation in the provision welfare services • Treatment of the traditional family in welfare politics • Role of the state, market and family in the provision of welfare services

6. Development welfare states • Criticism on welfare states • Budgetary problems • More emphasis on the market en freedom of choice • Enabling state • Empowerment, privatization, responsibility • Crisis in the neo-liberal welfare state model

7. Development of European housing policy • High degree of government involvement, particularly to alleviate housing shortages • Greater emphasis on housing quality • Emphasis on housing distribution, withdrawal of the state • Reappearance of qualitative and/or qualitative housing shortages, state involvement increases in some countries

10. Results from recent comparative housing research projects • Norris and Shields 2004: Regular national report on housing developments in European countries • Whitehead & Scanlon 2007: Social Housing in Europe • Lawson and Milligan 2007: International trends in housing and policy responses • Czischke & Pittini 2007: Housing Europe 2007 • Ball 2008: The RICS European Housing Review

11. Emerging trends (1) • Average standards of housing rising in most European countries (except transition economies?) • Rising inflation and nominal interest rates: stagflation? • Possible effects of the credit crunch: higher risk premiums on mortgage lending and stronger ration criteria • Average financial housing costs are growing in most countries • Growing problems of access and affordability • The complexity, volatility and greater differentiation of housing markets within regions and countries

12. Emerging trends (2) • House prices have been rising sharply in real terms across Europe over most of the last decade, but are decreasing in some countries • Use of housing to support other borrowing, growth of re-mortgaging, interest only loans • Adjustment needs for the existing stock • Changing demands and needs arising from a new profile of social housing tenants

13. Emerging trends (3) • Housing supply shortages in growth regions and high supply inelasticity • Social exclusion and segregation related to housing location, tenure and quality and race and ethnicity • Special housing needs of excluded groups, indigenous communities and those with support needs • Housing market cycles often lacks synchronisation with the political cycle

14. Emerging trends (4) • Average households already in owner-occupation are benefiting from greater choice, flexibility and stability • Impact of inheritance and issues of intergenerational equity • concerns about systemic risks in the housing system - US current experiences - Impact of broader economic downturn • Longer term issues relating to the use of housing assets • Inflexibility of owner-occupation as dominant housing tenure for labour market, urban regenerating as well as the housing market itself

15. General housing policy trends (1) • Restructuring of neighbourhoods • Increasing housing production in areas of high demand • Facilitating home ownership for new entrants and lower-income households • Promoting housing and neighbourhood sustainability (EU framework for sustainable urban development) • Promotion of sufficient social housing, ensuring affordability: reinventing the social rented sector

16. General housing policy trends (2) • The need for a longer term vision of the role of the social rented sector • Privatisation of the social rented sector • Pressure on social landlords to be more efficient and to respond to a increasingly diversifying demand • Reorganising governance of social housing

17. General housing policy trends (3) • Use of private sector finance also to support social sector housing • Promoting private investment in affordable housing • The influence of international agencies (EU directives on competition issues and overcoming regional disadvantages)

18. Most successful international responses to emerging housing issues (Lawson and Milligan) (1) • Housing as an integral part of social, economic and environmental policy • Sufficient housing expertise (good institutions) • A long-term commitment to achieving desired housing outcomes • A well designed mix of market and non-market mechanisms • A climate where diversity, flexibility and local innovation can flourish

19. Most successful international responses to emerging housing issues (Lawson and Milligan) (2) • Comprehensive and up-to-date market analysis and policy-orientated evaluation strategies • The adoption of balanced multi-tenure policies with a common focus on increasing affordability and sustainable housing options, improving tenure choice and pathways and supporting socially mixes communities

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