© Léna Constantin
– “We first understand the dismay of owners, and even professional managers, when faced with properties whose ecological performance must be immediately improved,” admits Henry Buzy-Cazaux.
The debate on housing classified G in the energy performance diagnostic scale divides between two parts of the housing sector, and undoubtedly even between two Frances. The former object when the latter provide solutions, without preventing themselves from remaining critical of the obligations that are now imposed on property owners. The speeches of those whom the mutation concerned plunges into deep suffering testify to the conviction that the energy renovationbut even the new, more virtuous construction, at least falls at the worst time and at most is the craziest political unrealism. These feelings and assessments are shared by professionals, experts, researchers, essayists, and a large part of the lay population. The majority? Yes, undoubtedly, but because it is common and ultimately normal for change to frighten us and for us not to feel ready for it. In these cases, we go so far as to neglect two observations: we could have been concerned earlier about deadlines which end up being pressing, and then there are indeed solutions.
Regarding the deadlines, there is no question of denying their requirement: the timetable for energy renovations of the Climate Resilience law concerning the rental stock, with its benchmarks of 2025, 2028 and 2034, or even the timetable for strengthening the RE 2020 construction standard which runs from 2025 to 2031 via 2028, in fact requires severe adaptation efforts. Impossible? No. Because finally, we are seeing players appear in the value chain whose job is to simplify, decode and resolve problems. What nature are these problems? They are technical and financial.
Co-ownership trustees: the urgency to act
Quotes of 800,000 euros
We first understand the dismay of owners, and even professional managers, when faced with properties whose ecological performance must be immediately improved. What can be done in the private parts of co-ownership, since the general assembly has not voted to intervene on the envelope, that is to say the building, that we are talking about a mode of heating, facade or roof? How can the trustee influence the future of the community of co-owners, faced with quote currently 800,000 eurosa million or a million and a half for a building of an average size of 20 or 25 apartments?
How can we even ensure that the DPE or the energy audit – for single-ownership properties – has been carried out according to the rules of the art and that its work recommendations are well-founded? How to sequence the work to make it consistent with the evolving contributory capacities of households, without giving up the ideal of overall renovation, the only guarantee of efficiency? How to finally finance the work, especially in a house in which their amount constitutes a significant part of the value of the property? What public aid –MaPrimeRenov in particular – or private – energy saving certificates – mobilize in relation to the situation of the owner, or for the co-ownership? What credits should I apply for? It is indeed financial engineering that we are talking about.
Towards an energy transition bank
The time has come for project management assistants, the famous AMO, technical or financial. The environmental transition is dizzying, without question, but it now has its facilitators. Certainly, the public authorities will not cut back on two urgent missions, and the Minister of Housing is aware of this: simplifying and stabilizing the rules such as aid in the first place, and taking measures likely to attenuate and cushion the suddenness (for those who could not anticipate) and the consequences of the constraints. Thus, the transpartisan bill which has just been filed, “aiming to prevent disputes relating to energy decency obligations and to secure their application in co-ownership”, tends to introduce flexibility where the legislator has enacted intransigent rules in 2021.
As for the simplification project, it will open up, in particular with the model of special laws that the State was able to write when the need was there, for the construction of the Olympic Village or the reconstruction of Mayotte. The government has also just entrusted Senator Amel Gacquerre with the mission of prefiguring an energy transition bank, called to finance households with difficult access to market financial institutionsbecause of low income or poorly stabilized situations. Backed by the Banque des Territoires, it will allow these families and individuals to absorb the remainder of the work essential to the environmental modernization of their homes. Despite these efforts, the energy transition will remain complex and the task of AMOs lies at this point in the chain.
“Housing construction is stalling: for the great ills there are the great remedies”
An urgent emergency
One after the other, the stakeholders in this change understand that beyond their fundamental profession they must provide this support service and that the responsibility of making what worries and repels people digestible falls on them. We even see manufacturers adopting this logic. A national leading brand in the manufacture of wooden windows, for new individual homes but also the transformation of existing collective and individual homes, Caséois in the process of equipping itself with an AMO tool for its customers, in order to promote a global approach to renovation, of which the replacement of openings will only be a sequence integrated into a complete approach. Invent a second profession to somehow promote the continuity of the first, by being agile and innovative. In the same vein, an association has just been created to encourage and promote project management assistance, under the name AFAST (association of project management assistants), with also the role of separating the wheat from the chaff… When a market opens, the best quickly rubs shoulders with the worst and it is already vital to inform the choice of professionals using AMOs as well as individuals to prevent the risks that advice lack independence, competence or integrity.
Reconciling the two Frances, the one which believes the energy transition of housing to be inaccessible and the one which puts it within reach, is a pressing matter of urgency. This is a major issue: the damage linked to climate change is upon us and it primarily threatens built heritage. Postponing due to moods or inability to find solutions is no longer tenable. And putting up with a lagging France is not democratically bearable either. It promotes blind extremism and harms social peace.
