In Milan it is not convenient to build houses to rent at low prices

The goal was to offer a 60 square meter two-room apartment at a monthly rent of 425 euros. A figure that currently allows – perhaps – to rent a bed in a double room. Result? Plan blown up, or almost.

In Milan it is not convenient to build houses to rent at a controlled price, not even when the land is practically given away by the municipality. Five out of six auctions announced by Palazzo Marino through the tender that is part of the Reinventing Cities plan, an initiative of the municipality in collaboration with C40, the network that includes 96 metropolises from all over the world committed to combating the climate and environmental emergency, were deserted.

The international tender was dedicated to creating apartments to be offered for rent at discounted prices (85 euros per square meter per year) to be built on the areas made available. There were six areas indicated, all with the starting price set at one euro: 4,800 square meters in via Pitagora (Villa San Giovanni area); 11,700 square meters in Piazza Martesana (Gorla area); 16 thousand square meters in via Zama-Solomone; 7,940 square meters in Piazzale Abbiategrasso; 4,200 square meters in viale Certosa 186. The only proposal presented – but will now have to be examined by the municipality’s experts – concerns an area that will be connected to the adjacent transformation of the MoLeCoLa project. The proposal, in detail, was presented by a team made up of Homes4All, Fondazione Housing Sociale and Onleco.

The municipality seems to be intent on changing the plan: “It has opened up to the possibility of presenting projects even with different financial plans as long as they respect the social objectives underlying the tender”, said housing councilor Pierfrancesco Maran. A sign, according to the Municipality, that “the market is not capable of developing low-cost initiatives for citizens given the current circumstances and construction costs.”

“After two editions of Reinventing Cities in which substantially all the localities received proposals, allowing us to approve the construction of over 1,200 affordable apartments, the response to this call was insufficient – admitted the housing councilor Pierfrancesco Maran -. In the discussions, the operators, in addition to the increase in construction costs, told us that both the cost of money and the propensity of real estate funds to support initiatives with higher returns than those possible with subsidized construction initiatives had a significant impact. This is an element that we will obviously take into consideration when updating the PGT by increasing the obligations for construction in subsidized housing, as this is the only way to obtain new homes at affordable prices”.