Les Echos featured us in their article about coliving, shared housing, and intergenerational residences, read more below:
Coliving, shared housing, and intergenerational residences. …these collective projects have a bright future ahead of them. Carriers of social ties are often better accepted locally than real estate.
Urban Campus and In’li have just announced the construction of a co-living residence in Ivry-sur-Seine (Val-de-Marne). Bringing together 165 individual and shared studios, the building will also house shared spaces (kitchen, lounges, coworking, gym, rooftop, etc.) as well as a coworking room for local entrepreneurs. Delivery is expected in 2025.
This project is typical of these alternative forms of housing which are multiplying in urban areas in the same way as intergenerational residences or shared housing.
Promote a sense of belonging
The trend of “co-” in housing is sustainable, according to Damien Robert, chairman of the board of In’li, a subsidiary of Action Logement specializing in the rental of intermediate housing. “Young workers, who make up 80% of our new arrivals, are looking for apartments in lively neighborhoods close to transport. But giving them access to a set of friendly spaces and events promoting the feeling of belonging to a community is a big plus for them, “specifying In’li’s commitment: 2,000 housing units in the coliving sector will be delivered within three years.
“This responds to known societal changes”, supports Amaury Courbon, co-founder of Colonies, one of the main building managers in coliving. His company has just announced a partnership of 200 million euros of investment with CDC Habitat to create twenty large residences with common areas. “Young people stay single longer and not finding themselves isolated is a real challenge.”
Participative housing booming
Getting out of “everyone at home” and creating more social ties is also the ambition of shared housing , governed by the Alur law (2014). The reason? Groups of residents come together to create their own residences by sharing certain spaces and activities. A way to promote exchanges between generations and eco-responsible lifestyles. Currently, an average of 300 housing units of this type are created per year, according to the Habitat Participatif France movement, which predicts that their number will exceed 10,000 within five years.
Even if these projects take time to materialize, four years on average, several communities such as Strasbourg, Nantes or Lille encourage their development. In the most tense areas, these participatory habitats carried by ordinary citizens would have little chance of seeing the light of day without the upstream intervention of the municipal authority, via calls for tenders aimed in part at this type of file. In general, elected representatives’ reluctance towards these new models is fading.
Because these collective projects stand out advantageously from the standard constructions often rejected locally. Christine Leconte, President of the National Council of the Order of Architects, assures us: “Mayors can be driving forces provided they develop available plots in a logic of common good. These new-generation housing units are much better accepted than low-quality projects by bringing something to the neighborhood and its inhabitants, such as a shared room or an open garden.
An alternative to nursing homes
“Intergenerational” residences are also beginning to arouse great interest among cities faced with the aging of their inhabitants. This is the observation of the social landlord Seqens (Action Logement) which has given rise to nine real estate projects over the past five years in the Paris region. These sets of 90 to 170 housing units include shared spaces and activities generally coordinated by a local association.
When allocating the apartments, the lessor ensures that there is a balanced mix between families, young workers and seniors to avoid a situation of isolation. For Damien Cacaret, president of Silver Valley, a cluster bringing together economic players serving the elderly , “baby boomers are more open than their elders to these new living spaces that promise social ties, designed in the heart of cities and adapted to autonomous seniors.
A welcome alternative to nursing homes which must be reserved for serious addiction. However, according to a Silver Valley study unveiled on November 29, these innovative formulas remain poorly known to the target audience. Two-thirds of the 1,000 seniors surveyed do not feel “at all informed about alternatives to living at home”.
To read the article in its original language (French) click here.
