They decided to take the issue of housing in the Brussels-Capital region seriously. And they want to do this with an unorthodox initiative: seizing houses and then renting them out. Of course, in lowercase letters. Problems with rising prices, a dwindling supply of affordable rental apartments, and the region’s “acute real estate crisis” have led to the reemergence of an old tool that municipalities have had for more than a decade: Droit de Gestion Publique, or DGP, allowing them to take over, renovate, vacant homes. and then a legal source that allows them to rent temporarily at social prices.

Considering that there are approximately 4,500 empty houses in Brussels, the measure could have significant significance. Its spirit is connected to one of the great warhorses of “pro-decent housing” groups: there are thousands of vacant homes in cities that are not coming to market, which would help soften prices.

“Acute crisis”. The quotation marks are taken from a recent OECD report in which the housing situation in the Brussels-Capital region is described this way. In the opinion of technicians, the Belgian region is experiencing an “acute real estate crisis” that affects its population unequally.

The cocktail is also unknown in Spain: rising prices, an increasingly affordable rental market and some families spending a much higher percentage of their income on rent than recommended. In your case, a significant number of vacant homes are added to this cocktail.

Click on the image to go to the tweet.

How will you solve it? Belgian authorities asked themselves such a question in March 2022, when they decided to implement a minor legislative change that strengthened the Droit de Gestion Publique (DGP), a figurehead that had existed on paper in Brussels for decades. It has been available for years, but it has not been reflected in practice.

More precisely, what the Brussels Parliament did two years ago was to reform the public housing management law, which since 2003 has allowed municipalities to temporarily take over, renovate and then rehabilitate vacant or vacant housing in poor condition. was to approve the project. on the rental market for a certain period of time and at discounted prices. The aim of the 2022 amendment was to facilitate this mechanism: to clarify how the procedure should proceed at each stage, to eliminate obstacles and to create a regional inventory of vacant houses.

But… How does DGP work? It is clearly explained by Bruxelles Logement, the organization working on housing accessibility in the Brussels-Capital region. In its words, the DGP “allows a publicly-run operator to temporarily take over the management of vacant or unhealthy housing and renovate and rent it at a discounted rate for at least nine years.” He acknowledges that this is so thanks to Parliament clarifying the process and providing resources to activate the DGP in March 2022.

“The aim is to carry out the necessary renovation works so that the property meets the requirements of the Housing Code and can be rented,” the Brussels agency said, before explaining that the measure targets a very specific tenant profile, such as families. Those who meet the conditions for access to social housing or are forced to leave their homes.

Click on the image to go to the tweet.

Can you buy any house? No. Both when the regulations are adopted in 2022 and now through the Bruxelles Logement, the region’s authorities emphasize that the DGP follows very specific steps and is also applied in well-defined cases. The focus of the inspection is on vacant houses where the inspection does not apply to rent or has been declared outright “uninhabitable”. No one can activate the mechanism. This is only in the hands of the 19 municipalities in Brussels-Capital and certain public institutions such as CPAS, autonomous authorities or regional institution.

To implement the DGP, administrations must also comply with a number of stages, including initial analysis and on-site inspection, studies and dialogue with the owner. The process is closed with a lease agreement that will last at least nine years.

Magazine in March 2022 when the Brussels Parliament approved changes to the rule Trends Trends He provided some clues, such as that DGP can be both voluntarily imposed, with the owner’s consent, and coercive, which occurs when the owner repeatedly and recklessly fails to comply with the law.

Click on the image to go to the tweet.

Submission of invoices… To understand DGP, you need to know two keys. The first relates to costs. Brussels officials announced that once the process progresses, it will not end until “all costs related to the management and renovation of the accommodation are fully covered by the rents.” In fact, if the owner wants to take back the house early, he has to assume that all bills have been “repaid in full”.

In other words, the rents are collected by the Brussels administration itself in order to cover the expenses required to make the house ready for rent. In any case, the Bruxelles Logement insists on the advantages of the DGP for property owners, who are exempt from sanctions and see how their property stops deteriorating and even increases in value.

…And empty houses. The second key is what the Brussels regulations say about empty houses. Bruxelles Logement is also quite clear on this issue: “Keeping a building or part of a residential building vacant for more than 12 months constitutes an administrative offense under the Brussels Housing Code.” The aim, the organization explains, is to “fight against the large number of empty houses” in the area and thus encourage their owners to rent them or look for other ways to benefit from them.

“The amount of the penalty is 500 euros per linear meter of facade, multiplied by the number of empty floors and the number of years the building has been vacant since it was first determined to be empty. Unfinished basements and attics are not included in this calculation,” he adds. The landlord is given a few months to explain the condition of the house and can even apply for help from the administration to rent or renovate the property.

From theory… Judging by the facts, some municipalities in the Brussels region are already doing this. In February, RTBF published that the authorities of Ixelles, one of the 19 municipalities in the Brussels-Capital region, decided to take action and identified five houses that could be transferred to public administration due to their characteristics. “These are buildings where the owner cannot improve the property or does not want to let it out,” explains the person responsible for housing.

Your village is not the only one realizing the advantages of DGP. Le Soir He also mentions Etterbeek and Saint-Gilles, two other municipalities in the Belgian region whose properties may soon be “seized” following the boost the public administration law received two years ago. Although the vehicle already exists, the fact that this is done now and not before is explained by the new scenario opening in 2022. Until then, the Housing Minister explains: Le SoirManagement was taking a “risk” by buying a property and renovating it. “Once the works are completed, the owner can come in and take back management of the building.”

So are there so many empty houses? Thousands. The data was recently provided by a study commissioned by the Brussels Housing District and is revealing: it shows that there are approximately 4,500 houses remaining illegally vacant in Brussels. Researchers calculated this figure after applying a set of rules and algorithms: They estimated that there were between 17,000 and 26,400 vacant homes in the area, and about 10,000 buildings could be considered “suspicious.”

After all, those responsible accept that a house may be empty for a while, for example between moves. Their calculations show vacancy rates in Brussels that lead them to assume that around 4,500 vacant homes is an all too realistic figure.

Image | Yannis Papanastasopoulos (Unsplash)

in Xataka | Brussels’ solution to the housing crisis: building wooden communes