Paris unveiled 96 social apartments with regulated rents

Last week, the French capital unveiled 96 social apartments with regulated rents, located on the roof of a department store right in the heart of the city. Less than a hundred apartments were built in the famous Parisian department store La Samaritaine, which has undergone extensive renovations in recent years. The building, which is owned by the LVMH Group (owner of the luxury brands Louis Vuitton, Givenchy or Moët & Chandon), has been closed since 2005 and was not reopened to visitors until June this year. As part of the reconstruction, several new floors were added to the roof of the building, in which representatives of Paris ceremoniously put into operation 96 apartments intended for low-income groups last week. Paris approved their construction in a more than 150-year-old Art Nouveau building in 2010, and the apartments were acquired by the Paris Housing Administration in 2012 for 23.7 million euros, writes the daily Les Echos. The regulated rent ranges from approximately EUR 430 per month for a studio apartment to EUR 929 per month for a three-room apartment. The department store with social apartments is located on the banks of the Seine, right in the center of Paris, a few hundred meters from the Louvre Museum. The standard market rent in flats would normally cost several thousand euros, the Bloomberg agency noted. Their balconies also have a view of the Eiffel Tower or the Sacré-Coeur Basilica. The project fits into the strategy of the administration of the mayor of Paris Anne Hidalg, who wants not only to increase the volume of affordable housing in the city, but also to prevent the widening of the gap between rich and poor districts of Paris. The French capital declared war on the "ghettos for the rich" a few years ago, when the head of the local housing administration announced plans to build social housing at prestigious addresses in the center.