The third day of the annual conference of the European Network for Housing Research (ENHR) has begun with the debate on the control of rental prices in European capitals, such as Paris, Berlin or Barcelona. This conversation has been established in the third plenary session, presented by the housing researcher and communicator Nuria Moliner, in which the following has spoken: Christine Whitehead (London School of Economics), Marco Peverini (Universidad Politecnico di Milano) and Konstantin A. Kholodilin (DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research).
Christine Whitehead, emeritus professor of Housing Economics at the London School of Economics and Deputy Director of LSE London, has opened the session. The expert has reviewed rent control measures over time to the present, under the title: ‘Changes in rent control patterns in Europe’. “In recent years, the environment has changed. And issues related to housing affordability and the relative power of investors and landlords have become increasingly sensitive, from a political point of view, to introducing stricter rents control policies”, he assured. Whitehead’s background is primarily specialized in housing economics, finance and politics.
In adition, Marco Peverini has contrasted two European cities with different policies and contexts regarding rent control: Milan and Vienna. One of the expert’s conclusions is “combining effective land regimes with clear regulative framework for the rent setting can do the job of creating a permanently rent-controlled stock”. Peverini, who is part of the research group of the Department of Architecture and Urban Studies (DAStU) of the Politecnico di Milano University, focuses his investigation mainly on affordable housing, with the aim of investigating social sustainability in planning and urban policies.
The participation of Konstantin A. Kholodilin has delved into the Catalan case with: ‘Lessons from a failed second-generation rent control in Catalonia’, in relation to the Catalan housing law to limit rents (Law 11/2020 of 18 September 2020) that was annulled by the Constitutional Court. Kholodilin has been a senior researcher at DIW Berlin (Germany) since 2005. His research focuses on real estate economics, spatial econometrics, and time series analysis of business cycles.
New housing research
Housing is a concept that can be approached from different points of view, and this is how it is being experienced during the ENHR. The workshops represent the appropriate setting to share, learn and be interested in housing issues as diverse as: collaborative housing, land and housing policies in cities, energy efficiency, sustainability and housing for the elderly, among others.
About collaborative housing, it has highlighted the work of Joana Pestana, urban researcher and co-founder of the ‘Women in Architecture’ association, which values social micro-practices to tackle the precariousness of housing in a collaborative way. Didier Desponds, professor of geography at the University of Cergy-Pontoise, has examined the impact of the pandemic crisis in the peripheral area of the city of Paris, following its relationship with metropolitan, land and housing regulation.
The issue of energy efficiency and environmental sustainability in housing has been addressed by the researcher Kairui You (TUDelft). The architect has talked about the real energy saving standard depending on the economic level of the people who live in a building. From an economic point of view, Tijn Croon, also researcher at Delft University of Technology, has considered exposing energy poverty through the use of the poverty gap index in Netherlands.
The living conditions of elderly people are also related to housing issues, as researchers Youngcha Cho and Jo Brett have shown in their pilot study in Oxfordshire. His presentation, called ‘Integration of rapid home adaptation services with health and social care services’, is aimed at improving housing conditions to improve people’s health.
Field Trips: four routes through the innovative projects in housing and urban planning in Barcelona
In the afternoon, four visits have been organized to different areas of Barcelona which show the transformation of the city and different projects trying to solve the housing problem. These visits have been carried out in the Plaça de les Glòries, La Marina del Prat Vermell, the 22@ innovation district and Barcelona’s ‘Superilla’ model in Sant Antoni neighbourhood. The latter is one of the main points of the new city model presented by Barcelona City Council: the ‘Superilles’. In these, emphasis is placed on sustainability and the improvement of the quality of life of the neighborhood with the creation of public spaces for pedestrians. In 2017, it was agreed to generate these social areas equipped with street furniture as a result of the participatory process between: neighborhood, merchants, Student Family Associations (AFA) and several groups in Sant Antoni.
ENHR Evening and the Bengt Turner Award
The evening has ended the third day of the ENHR at the Estació de França, with a dinner where the Bengt Turner Award was delivered to Anamaria Klasić, researcher at the Institute for Social Research in Zagreb for her investigation: ‘A post-socialist view on social mix in Zagreb’s large housing estates: Quantitative insights’. In addition, during the dinner the city that will host the ENHR conference in 2023 was officially presented: Łódź (Poland).