The Walloon Government is launching a new way of financing the construction and renovation of public housing. The goal? To reduce completion times, make better use of public funds and make housing available to citizens more quickly.
Nearly 50,000 households are on the waiting list. Despite successive investment plans over the past 25 years, the housing stock remains stagnant at around 100,000 units.
The main difficulty lies in delays in turning decisions into actual deliveries. Between a financing decision and the handover of keys, an average of almost seven years passes for projects run by public housing companies (SLSP). For some operators, this timeframe even exceeds ten years.
These delays place a heavy burden on public finances, drive up the cost of construction sites, delay access to housing for thousands of families and limit operators' ability to renew their housing stock due to a lack of rental income.
To address this challenge, the Government is launching a pilot project based on a DBFM/DRFM public-private partnership, standing for “Design, Build/Renovate, Finance, Maintain”.
The idea is to entrust a private partner, on public land, with the design, construction or renovation, financing and maintenance of housing for a set period. Public authorities remain responsible for the framework, the objectives pursued and allocation.
What makes this model distinctive is that the private partner is not paid solely for building, but also for meeting delivery deadlines and guaranteeing the quality and availability of the building throughout the contract term. This better aligns the interests of the various stakeholders around a single goal: quickly making quality housing available to citizens and keeping it in good condition over the long term.
This model works elsewhere, and there is no reason it could not be implemented in Wallonia.
The first projects will be developed as a priority on land owned by the Société wallonne du Logement (SWL).
Cécile Neven, Minister for Housing: “Every year saved in completing a project means families gaining faster access to quality housing and millions of euros in avoided extra costs. Today, housing production is stagnating. This calls for exploring other ways of doing things. We will examine, without taboo, whether this type of public-private partnership, which works in the neighbouring regions and countries around us, can enable us to build and renovate faster in Wallonia, while guaranteeing public oversight, final quality and the proper use of regional resources. It is our responsibility to ensure that every public euro is managed and used as effectively as possible.”