For the past 13 years, Apur’s proactive approach, in collaboration with the City of Paris, has made it possible to draw up a list of private housing buildings in Paris that run the highest risk of becoming run down.
Each year, between 150 and 300 buildings are reported to the City of Paris Department of Housing and Living Conditions (DLH) by the Observatory for the Prevention of Building Deterioration. A total of 1,226 building have been identified through this procedure since 2008.
In Paris, the substandard and degraded housing stock was largely eliminated thanks to a large-scale plan implemented between 2002 and 2018, that enabled 2,200 buildings to be treated¹. However, substandard housing is a phenomenon that requires constant vigilance. Rundown housing is often associated with the social housing stock as a result of the occupation characteristics of buildings (instability of inhabitants, condominium indebtedness, over-crowding), this coupled with the fragility of construction, constitute factors which can lead to housing becoming run down. The treatment of substandard housing is therefore as much a social issue as a real estate issue. In order to avoid new cases of the buildings deteriorating, a municipal policy is constantly implemented. This includes monitoring of the private housing stock, actions combining coercive and incentive measures, as well as a preventive approach.
Since 2008, the Observatory for the Prevention of Building Deterioration, created and run by the Paris Urbanism Agency - Apur - each year compiles a list of Parisian buildings showing the greatest risk of deterioration. By identifying these buildings the aim is to guide a part of the field inspections carried out by the City of Paris’ Technical Services for Housing (STH), so that action can be taken as early as possible. The method is based on the selection, weighting and cross-referencing of a set of indicators relating to the typology of buildings, the quality of construction and its maintenance, as well the management and occupation characteristics.
