In October 2024, the European Union announced its first commissioner with direct responsibility for housing, as Dan Jørgensen was appointed the EU Commissioner for Energy and Housing. The reactions were mixed. While some voices were positive about the increased focus on affordable housing and the possibility for the EU to support member states in tackling the housing crisis, concerns were raised about the EU interfering in an issue which by nature is national and local.

This paper investigates the possible consequences of renewed EU interference in the housing markets in Sweden and the Netherlands – two countries which have previously changed their legislation for social and public housing due to potential conflict with the EU’s state-aid rules. The paper provides an overview of the responses from political parties and key stakeholders in Sweden and the Netherlands and discusses the potential outcome of a change in state aid rules for the public/social housing systems. The authors call for a focus on the urgent shortage of affordable housing and its negative impact on individuals and society, and argue that politicians should use the opportunity to prioritize long-term systemic impact.

The paper is written by Martin Grander, Associate Professor at the Department of Urban Studies, Faculty of Culture and Society, Malmö University and Marja Elsinga, Professor at the Department of Management in the Built Environment, Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment, TU Delft.

Rising energy prices across Europe have increased concerns over energy poverty. Despite significant scholarly focus on financial relief measures instituted by national governments, locally tailored crisis measures have remained overlooked. This study delves into the Dutch context, where part of the government's response to the energy crisis was decentralised, allowing municipalities considerable discretion in experimenting with energy poverty interventions. It compares two strategies: ‘energy coaching’ services – offering advice on sustainable energy practices – and shallow retrofitting by ‘fix teams’ – installing minor energy-saving measures in homes. The impact of these interventions on residential comfort, sustainable behaviour adoption, and (financial concerns regarding) energy bills is assessed through an extensive survey involving treatment and control groups coupled with detailed administrative data on households and dwellings. Results indicate that, on an aggregate level, local interventions significantly enhanced perceived comfort and reduced energy bills among the treatment groups. Comparing individual interventions, notably, more extensive ones such as fix teams and comprehensive energy coaching were significantly more impactful than those involving a single visit, highlighting the importance of continuous engagement. Additionally, we found that energy poverty status significantly amplified the effectiveness of these interventions, thereby stressing the importance of focusing efforts on vulnerable households.

Since the 1990s, many governments have reduced direct funding for social housing. In Northwestern Europe, indirect subsidies and guarantees have allowed private providers to maintain and expand the social rental stock. In contrast, Spain's social rental sector has remained underdeveloped. Amid the current affordability crisis, attention to social housing is growing, emphasized by a new law prohibiting the sale of public land zoned for this purpose. Given public expenditure constraints, Public-Private Partnerships (PPPs) have emerged as an alternative to finance new construction. These partnerships involve leasing public land at reduced costs to private entities for social housing development. Despite land availability, financial challenges persist and tenders often fail to attract private sector interest. This paper examines constraints affecting social housing development by exploring a PPP by the Catalan Land Institute. The central research question is: How do institutional dynamics and financial constraints impact the provision of social rental housing in Spain? To answer this question, a mixed-methods approach integrates interviews with a sensitivity analysis of key parameters in a Discounted-Cash-Flow (DCF) model. The findings underscore high financing costs, weak renter protections, and misaligned fiscal policies as significant obstacles. The paper recommends further investigating public-backed guarantors, housing allowances, and fiscal incentives to address these challenges.

This report presents the Transdisciplinary Environment for Affordable and Sustainable Housing (TEASH) developed in the three-year activity of the RE-DWELL network. Together with Deliverables 4.1-4.5 and 4.7, it represents the work done in the project to create a transdisciplinary learning and research environment spanning over academia, research and practice. [...]

Jongeren vinden vaak moeizaam een geschikt eigen thuis en worden daarmee belemmerd in hun ontwikkeling. Ouderen die “langer zelfstandig” moeten wonen ontberen vaak een woonplek waar de nodige zorg en het nodige gezelschap beschikbaar zijni . Een gezond thuis is een voorwaarde om grip te hebben op het leven en daarmee cruciaal voor gezondheid, welzijn en maatschappelijke stabiliteit. Niet voor niets is in onze Grondwet vastgelegd dat de overheid een zorgplicht heeft voor de “woonvoorziening”. Anno 2024 lijkt volkshuisvesting -de zorg voor een adequaat thuis- terug van lange tijd weggeweest, met een minister van wonen die deals sluit en de regie meer in handen wil nemen. Grote vraag is hoe de woonambities van een volgend kabinet eruit zien en waar bewoners en investeerders op kunnen rekenen? Investeren in wonen is investeren in de lange termijn waarin vele kabinetten voorbij komen. Dat vergt visie op “waardevol wonen” dat maatschappelijk en financieel rendeert en de daarvoor benodigde instituties en governance. Achtereenvolgens komen de benutting van woonruimte, misbruik van schaarste, investeringsperspectief en kwaliteit van woningen en wonen aan de orde. [...]

State-subsidised housing in the Global South often receives criticism for ­failing to meet the economic needs of low-income citizens. The K206 housing project, situated in Alexandra, Johannesburg, stands out as a unique case by not only addressing housing requirements but also addressing the economic concerns of its low-income homeowners. This response included the incorporation of state initiated formal built-in rental rooms and provisions for incremental extensions to support income generation. This paper aims to explore both of these options that allowed residents to use housing as a means of income generation, and examines household strategies and the motivations behind using these options for extra income. Twenty-one resident interviews and spatial analyses provided insights on how the K206 housing facilitated income-­generating opportunities for its residents and analyses whether households capitalised on these opportunities and the factors influencing their decisions to do so. The findings were that state built-in backyard rooms did not generally work for income generation due to poor allocation strategies that caused conflict. Incremental extensions, even in unintended locations proved more effective for generating income. Incrementally added backyard rooms served multiple purposes and had the potential to generate income to address cash shortfalls, contribute to ­pension plans, and facilitate investments.

Following the work presented in Deliverable 4.6, this report focuses on the development and application of a toolbox designed to foster collaborative knowledge construction among stakeholders addressing affordable and sustainable housing procurement in a local context. [...]

The South African Reconstruction and Development Programme (RDP) was initiated to provide subsidised housing for low‐income families. However, the programme faced challenges in establishing adequate technical guidelines and standards, resulting in subpar housing quality. This article discusses the multifaceted nature of subsidised housing design, emphasising the importance of incorporating technical housing standards as well as the spatial needs of residents based on their context (at both domestic and neighbourhood scales). The article focuses on the K206 housing RDP project in Alexandra, Johannesburg, as a case study that transitioned from generic technical standards to a resident‐responsive design scheme that was inspired by the backyard room incremental expansions that were already prevalent in the Alexandra context. A critical review of South Africa’s RDP housing design technical standards and policy is explored. The article also examines the density standards and allowances for incremental expansions introduced by the K206 project, analysing data derived from fieldwork observations, interviews, and the spatial analysis of 26 dwelling units. The study’s findings underscore the significance of maintaining an equilibrium between technical standards and resident‐responsive design decisions. The results demonstrate that tailoring the RDP housing design solutions to unique contextual needs can significantly elevate the quality of life of residents concerning income generation and flexibility for incremental expansion. However, this balance is delicate and disparities between the RDP technical standards and user‐initiated development over time also have the potential to ultimately impair residents’ living spaces.

Despite persistent housing affordability issues, energy policy and housing renovation are usually investigated separately from housing costs other than energy. Researchers have examined the financial viability of renovation attending to building conditions and the socio-economic characteristics of their occupants. However, the distributional impacts of renovation incentives and the potential of fiscal policy to redistribute housing costs remain understudied. Dutch fiscal policy, favouring homeownership, offers a relevant context to evaluate how property taxation can boost renovation rates. The novelty of this paper resides in investigating the impact of two policies, the current direct subsidy and a proposal for a green tax, on both the financial viability of renovation and the subsequent distribution of housing costs. The proposed green tax combines energy efficiency and taxation of property revenue. We employ a model considering marginal costs of housing renovation, obtained from a government dataset, and marginal benefits, drawn from a hedonic regression. We assess the distributional impacts of different policy scenarios by examining changes in user costs across income deciles. Our findings indicate that existing renovation subsidies exacerbate the regressive distributional impacts resulting from the current housing taxation system in the Netherlands. Introducing energy-efficiency-linked property taxation can make homeownership fiscality less regressive while incentivising housing renovation. Ultimately, this study highlights the importance of incorporating housing affordability as a fundamental element in renovation policies to balance environmental and distributional objectives.

Door vergrijzing groeit in Nederland het aantal ouderen dat gezelschap en zorg zoekt. Hoewel de overheid ‘langer zelfstandig wonen’ tot beleidsmotto heeft verheven, zijn zowel wonen als zorg daar nog niet op ingericht. Gelukkig verscheen onlangs het programma Wonen en Zorg voor Ouderen van ministers De Jonge (Volkshuisvesting en Ruimtelijke Ordening) en Helder (Langdurige Zorg en Sport). Clusteren, bewegen en ontmoeten: het zijn de inspirerende woorden in deze nota die ons op weg helpen naar de broodnodige afstemming van wonen en zorg voor een waardige oude dag.

The regulation of financial markets according to Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) criteria has become a priority for the European Union (EU). Recent legislation, such as the EU Green Taxonomy, aims to identify sustainable investments enhancing transparency and accountability while steering private finance toward environmental objectives. The introduction of ESG criteria poses specific questions for Social Housing Organisations (SHOs), particularly as the decarbonisation of the housing stock is also incorporated into national legislation. This article contributes to the social housing finance literature by breaking ground on ESG, an area of intensive legislative activity currently re-shaping financial markets. The study draws from interviews with SHOs’ finance directors, banking officers, rating agencies and public officials to answer the question: How does the introduction of ESG legislation affect the financing of social housing decarbonisation? First, the results show that ESG legislation is broadening reporting responsibilities while producing only limited additional finance ultimately geared towards large and commercially oriented SHOs. Second, the expansion of energy-efficiency requirements is resulting in higher costs creating tensions with SHOs’ social mission of building homes at affordable rents. Third, the adoption of ESG financing is producing inequalities in access to capital across national financing systems and individual providers.

A significant number of young people live in temporary homes, which are designed to fulfil basic needs and provide space for normal activities. However, it is unclear what those basic activities are. Moreover, the indoor environmental quality is often left out of the meaning of home, although activities and objects can affect its experienced quality. We therefore verbally and visually explored how young temporary dwellers appropriate and experience their homes, including the indoor environmental quality. Fourteen young adults took part in semi-structured interviews and photographed their most used as well as their favourite place. The interviews were transcribed and analysed following an interpretative phenomenological analysis. The experiences of appropriation in the home were connected to the physical environment through an analysis of the photos and floor plans (sketched by the researcher) using an architectural analysis from the user perspective. The outcome showed that the young adults appropriated their home in three ways: by familiarising the place with objects and “normal” activities, organising where things are and when they happen, and managing the indoor environmental quality through activities and objects. It is concluded that qualitative and visual analyses can assist with making recommendations to improve the design of temporary housing.

The energy transition across Europe’s built environment will probably be one of the main financial challenges of the coming decades. Renovating the social housing stock to attain the built fabric standards introduced in the European Directive on Energy Performance of Building (EPBD) will require the mobilisation of both public and private funding as envisioned by the European Commission in the Renovation Wave. In this landscape of increased investment needs, Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) standards have risen to a prominent position as the main indicators of sustainable investment. While ESG-earmarked funds have grown significantly in the last years, there is widespread concern about the real impact of ESGfunded projects and whether these are in fact bringing additional investment into key transitional activities such as the renovation of the social housing stock. This project poses two questions, first, How does ESG funding interlock with the renovation strategies of social housing providers? And second, How do institutional factors affect the uptake of ESG funding? To answer these questions, this project draws from semi-structured interviews with finance officers from housing providers across six European countries with large social housing stocks: Austria, Germany, The Netherlands, France, Sweden, and the UK. The main objective of this paper is to critically assess the contributions of ESG funding to the energy transition and contextualise it within traditional forms of private and public financing of social housing.

Recent energy price spikes have led to increased energy poverty among low-income households living in inefficient homes. Accurate statistics on energy poverty help inform resource allocation and better target relief schemes and retrofit funds. Existing indicators are predominantly defined in terms of a headcount ratio – the share of population living below a certain threshold or poverty line. In this paper we draw from the literature on income poverty evaluation to argue that the use of more elaborate energy poverty gap indices can substantiate the design and monitoring of energy poverty policies, by not only considering incidence but also intensity and inequality of energy poverty across households. We demonstrate that the choice for a particular energy poverty (gap) indicator makes the implicit welfare choices of energy poverty policies explicit. We illustrate our arguments for the case of the Netherlands, using recently developed microdata statistics on energy poverty, and an imposed energy price shock. We show that spatial targeting of relief funds based on incidence would neglect the full depth of energy poverty deprivation. Finally, we argue that visualisation techniques from the income poverty literature help to comprehend different poverty orderings and draw comparisons between time periods, regions, and subgroups.

People living in short-term rental housing, henceforth temporary housing, are rarely consulted by professionals involved in the design process, whether regarding new or refurbished buildings. Knowing what is required for temporary dwellers to feel at home and how their meanings of home relate to household characteristics, activities, and indoor environmental quality, might result in better designs for these commonly small dwellings. To explore the views of temporary occupants about their home environment, we designed and conducted a survey directed to young people in the Netherlands, likely to be familiar with living in temporary accommodation (141 university students, 58 refugees who have received a permit to stay; henceforth named permit holders), 23 persons who were working 4 days and studying 1 day; henceforth named starters). Through factor analysis, six meanings of home were found to be statistically significant: Representation, privacy, sociability, rootedness, future, and appropriation. Multiple regression analyses and analyses of variance indicated that meanings of home were related to some household characteristics and the presence of light and cleanliness. Our study showed that measuring meanings of home might help understand not only how dwellings are used but also how to improve the design of small temporary dwellings. For instance, more possibilities for good or natural light, storage, and the display of personal possessions should be incorporated into the design of these small dwellings.

In 2018, the average number of occupants per dwelling is steadily decreasing, creating a demand for small, affordable housing. According to European Union energy targets, new small homes should be energy efficient. However, data clearly shows that energy efficient homes are mostly unaffordable and there is an urgent need to design and build small affordable zero energy homes. However, a sustainable business model for small affordable zero energy homes has not yet been developed in European countries. The Housing 4.0 Energy project explores the development of affordable zero energy homes in three countries: the Netherlands, Belgium and Ireland. This study explores the business models and potential for scaling up the five schemes (Ireland operates three schemes in different counties). The results of this study may be useful to practitioners, policy makers, and small families facing the problem of affordable zero energy homes. The Dutch scheme targets a market of self-builders of low-middle income households. In the Flemish scheme, non-profit social rental agencies provide the houses for low-income groups. In Ireland, local authorities provide social housing for applicants on waiting lists. The Business Model Canvas (BMC) is used to analyse the business models for affordable zero energy homes in these countries. Data is collected mainly through interviews and focus group meetings with experts. The results show that all schemes create environmental, social and economic sustainability values for low/low-middle income households by providing energy efficient, comfortable and affordable homes. Several barriers to the upscaling of these homes were identified, such as cultural barriers in design, building materials, as well as legal and technical barriers. The technical barriers can be addressed in a relatively short time, but overcoming cultural and behavioural barriers might be more difficult. Engaging government, market participants, and providers can accelerate the development of these schemes. Examples of different schemes and the courses developed during the project can be used to disseminate the results of the business models of these schemes. Finally, the business models of the schemes can be modified and adopted for the development of affordable zero energy homes in other countries.

The Renovation Wave is the latest addition to a series of European measures designed to incentivise investment in a low-carbon built environment. In terms of residential retrofits, research has focused on how structural measures can reduce costs through energy savings and improve affordability in the long term. However, it is less clear how retrofit policies can positively impact households with different income levels, energy costs and savings' opportunities across time. EU Member States have provided substantial funding for retrofitting in the form of grants, subsidised loans and tax deductions. This paper addresses with the Netherlands as case study the question: how do different retrofit measures affect the finances and affordability of homeowners in the short and longer term? Our numerical analysis is mainly based on the WoON 2018 dataset, a household-level survey. By focusing on household finances under different financing schemes, this paper aims to place renovation measures in the context of the housing affordability literature. User costs are one of the most important capital-based indicators of long-term affordability. In contrast, cash flows deal with the exchange of money and indicate financial access to housing at a given point in time. In the Dutch context of rising house prices, it is crucial to measure the short and long-term economic impact of energy efficiency measures, as they are likely to have a lasting impact on affordability. Our results show that depending on policy, a majority of homes could be retrofitted with a cost-neutral margin, depending on energy prices and post-retrofit savings. The main barrier to retrofitting is the upfront cost, which threatens short-term affordability. Loans, either subsidised or private, offer an alternative to upfront costs but reduce cost-neutrality. On the other hand, from a user cost perspective, retrofitting lowers costs in the long run. Finally, a cluster analysis shows that middle and higher income groups would be most likely to benefit from retrofitting. This raises the question of the regressive nature and targeting of flat-rate subsidies and tax deductions.

In 2010, the Energy Performance of Buildings Directive announced that all new buildings are to be nearly zero-energy as of January 2021. Having reached year 2022, it can be said that the transition has proven to be slower than anticipated. Transition research has long acknowledged the potential impact of the human factor in the process of change. While there is a relative wealth of literature on end-users and their perceptions as recipients of change within the demand end of the market, research on professionals and their perceptions as actors in the process of change is limited. Thus, this study looks at the human factor in the supply end of the market by bringing professionals’ perceptions to the forefront in its investigation of barriers to the implementation and uptake of nearly zero-energy housing in practice. As part of the project entitled Housing 4.0 Energy: Affordable and Sustainable Housing through Digitization, data were collected through a focus group and semi-structured interviews with housing professionals in Kilkenny, Ireland. Descriptive coding, inferential coding, and fact tracing revealed several identified barriers to be perceptions and not actual barriers to nearly zero-energy housing. Additionally, information dissemination and assimilation between policy and industry was identified as an overarching barrier. Therefore, the paper ends with recommendations to reduce delay factors at the supply end of the market, thus contributing to closing the gap between the development of policies and their implementation

This chapter evaluates the Dutch social housing model and its impact on the quality of neighbourhoods. It describes the theoretical debate on the link between affordable housing and planning and the different models for social rental housing. The chapter looks at the changing link between social housing and urban renewal and how social housing has changed from being a solution into being a problem and focuses on the outcome of the Dutch social rental model by looking at the composition of the population of the large cities in the Randstad. There is an ongoing debate in housing studies on the sustainability of such a ‘unitary rental sector’. This means a social rental sector for a broad target group that is in competition with the commercial rental sector. In 2015 a new Housing Act came into force that implied some fundamental changes for urban policy: more targeting of lower-income groups and less emphasis on the urban dimension.

Inclusionary housing (IH) is a regulatory instrument adopted by local governments in many countries to produce affordable housing by capturing resources created through the marketplace. In order to assess whether it is efficient, scholarly attention has been widely focused on its evaluation. However, there is a lack of studies evaluating IH from a governance perspective. Since IH is about involving private actors in affordable housing production, the governance point of view of cooperating governmental and non-governmental actors governing society to achieve societal goals is highly relevant. The two most important elements of governance—actors and interrelationships among these actors—are taken to build an analytical framework to explore and evaluate the governance of IH. Based on a research approach that combines a literature review and a case study of China, this paper concludes that the ineffective governance of Chinese IH is based on three challenges: (1) The distribution of costs and benefits across actors is unequal since private developers bear the cost, but do not enjoy the increments of land value; (2) there is no sufficient compensation for developers to offset the cost; and (3) there is no room for negotiations for flexibility in a declining market. Given that IH is favored in many Chinese cities, this paper offers the policy implications: local governments should bear more costs of IH, rethink their relations with developers, provide flexible compliance options for developers, and perform differently in a flourishing housing market and a declining housing market.