Credit: Housing Ministry
Luxembourg's Ministry of Housing has announced the investment of over €550 million in the creation of affordable housing.
In April this year, the Ministry of Housing set up the Special Housing Development Support Fund. During a press conference held today, Friday 2 October 2020, Housing Minister Henri Kox presented the fund's first interim report and called on municipalities to participate in the Housing Pact 2.0.
Currently, the Ministry of Housing finances more than 3,600 affordable housing units spread over 308 different projects in 57 municipalities. These housing units are provided by the national association for affordable housing SNHBM (34%), the Housing Fund (25%), the municipalities (21%) and other associations and private actors (20%). More than three-quarters of the projects in progress have been initiated during the last four years, with the state making available more than €550 million to the various actors for the construction of these 3,600 housing units. The amount of the subsidies depends mainly on whether it is housing intended for sale or rental.
A large part of these are developing projects in collaboration with the two public promoters Housing Fund and SNHBM. 28 municipalities are themselves developers of this type of housing. Minister Henri Kox recalled that the two major public developers are available to support the municipalities in the creation of affordable housing. Collaboration with public promoters will ultimately allow more housing of this type to be created in all municipalities in the country.
In this context, the Housing Minister highlighted the importance of the new Housing Pact 2.0 aimed at establishing a true national alliance between the government and the municipalities for the creation of affordable public housing.
In addition, developers have informed the government of their intention to start construction on some 4,000 additional housing units by 2024. These include the major emblematic projects on the brownfield sites of Wiltz and Dudelange, as well as a series of medium-scale projects in Echternach, Kehlen, Mamer, Mersch, Diekirch and the City of Luxembourg. It is thus planned to increase the production of affordable housing to more than 1,000 units per year.
Minister Henri Kox also able announced that the Special Fund has enabled the acquisition of more than 1,000 ares of land to be developed. This land is expected to be able to accommodate approximately 300 additional housing units.
