The challenge of social housing retrofitting in Brussels region
Housing Europe and SLRB at the forefront
Brussels, 14 November 2016 | Published in Energy
On 9 November, the Brussels Region Social Housing Agency (SLRB-BGHM) in cooperation with Housing Europe, organised a workshop about the renovation of social housing with the key question how to improve and speed up the renovation of social homes in Brussels.
SLRB and the Brussels government have invested 75mio € in 2015 to renovate about 9,000 dwellings. But more needs to be done to achieve deeper renovations to maintain comfort, well-being and affordability and contribute to the integrated development of Brussels Region.
Housing Europe Secretary General and Policy Coordinator, Julien Dijol presented some of the examples coming from other European countries that illustrate the innovative approach in terms of process (public procurement, guarantee of energy performance), technologies (industrialisation) and financing (third party investment).
Pierre Levi of Greenflex focused on the emerging cooperation between social housing providers and construction/renovation companies in France in order to implement the Energiesprong model as part of the European project Transition Zero. The Energiesprong concept is indeed an attempt to bring together innovative approaches on technologies, process (30 year guarantee) and funding mechanism (fixed monthly payment by tenants instead of energy bills). The Brussels region authorities were interested in such an approach.
Concluding, representatives of the SLRB reminded the importance of finding solutions that will help to accompany tenants, improve legal and technical processes linked to renovation and simplify the obligations linked to planning.
