Sustainable Collective Housing by Nicol Lee Ann;

Sustainable Collective Housing by Nicol Lee Ann;

Author:Nicol, Lee Ann; [Nicol, Lee Ann]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Taylor & Francis Group
Published: 2013-08-15T00:00:00+00:00


Example b: Housing subsidy conditions influence management strategies

Case study 1: SCHL and case study 3: Volkswohnung: In Switzerland, the Confederation, canton, and the municipality can each make available subsidies to housing organizations so that they can build and renovate affordable housing. In return for these subsidies, the receiving housing organizations must construct and build apartments that meet a certain standard of quality and must rent them to individuals and families that would normally not be able to afford them on the open market. To ensure that the recipients of these apartments are the intended beneficiaries, public authorities impose certain conditions on use and occupancy. These conditions have changed periodically with the introduction of new housing laws and implementation acts, but the net result has always been that the stock owner loses some management control of its housing stock.

According to the SCHL, onerous occupancy conditions (regulation of RS 1 Living space) tied to subsidies create a high turnover in subsidized apartments and a restriction on management independence that has limited the SCHL’s ability to best respond to the needs of its members (management strategy applied to NM 1 Solving general housing needs). This has long been considered unacceptable to the SCHL; consequently, the SCHL has progressively developed strategies to give itself the flexibility to invest in its own projects.

Firstly, as far back as 1922, the SCHL campaigned to increase the number of shares purchased by members. At first, campaigns targeted civil servants and professional associations, and the SCHL even required that entrepreneurs awarded contracts for the construction of new projects be required to purchase shares worth five per cent of their work. Later, campaigns targeted existing members who were encouraged to purchase shares for the sake of the ‘cooperative spirit’ (often with disappointing results from the perspective of the SCHL administration). These drives have continued throughout the existence of the SCHL.

Next, in 1960 the SCHL established an equalization fund whereby the rents in older buildings, which had not been increased in over two decades, were raised and this increase in rental revenue financed new construction projects that could still offer lower rents than those found in a highly speculative market. This system of rent equalization was used repeatedly in subsequent years to finance projects.

Thirdly, the SCHL adopted new statutes in 1970 which gave it the power to accumulate much more capital by: 1) setting incentives for members to purchase shares by eliminating the four percent maximum limit on dividends; 2) increasing the mandatory share purchase to two shares per room instead of two per apartment; and 3) encouraging the purchase of shares by municipalities by dividing the assets amongst all of the municipalities that supported the SCHL, and not just the city of Lausanne, in the event of the dissolution of SCHL. The increase in shares was put into effect in 1976. The SCHL modified the statutes again in 1995 to allow for more obligatory shares per room in an apartment, and this was put into effect in 2000.

Consequently, periodically throughout



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