The HLM office in Bobigny voted on Wednesday to cancel the rents promised by the city in the midst of a coronavirus crisis, despite a request from the prefecture which asked for the postponement of the vote for questions of law, we learned from of town hall.
The board of directors of the HLM office voted "the exemption of rents for the month of April", specifies the city. "This exemption will take the form of a reimbursement of the amounts paid by the tenants," she adds. The city "undertakes to pay for it in the form of an exceptional subsidy of 800,000 euros" part of the rents to compensate for the losses of the office.
The payment of this subsidy, which has yet to be voted on at the next municipal council, will take place "by the end of June," added the city. It specifies that the measure "may only be implemented subject to the legality check carried out by the Prefect (...)".
"Favor the purchasing power of families"
However, before the vote, the prefecture of Seine-Saint-Denis had sent a letter to the president of the HLM office asking him to postpone the board of directors "for a reason of form". The convocation of the CA "not mentioning the urgency, it was up to you to provide a period of ten days" between the convocation and the holding of the council, wrote the prefecture, in this letter consulted by AFP. A deadline which was not respected, the convocation of the members of the Board being dated May 15, according to a source close to the file.
On April 23, the city of Bobigny agreed to cancel all April rents for the 4,000 tenants of its DPO. A measure dictated by the desire to "privilege the purchasing power of families", affected, according to the city, by the economic consequences due to confinement.
The municipality, whose 1st UDI deputy Christian Bartholmé, majority candidate, came second in the first round of municipal elections behind the communist candidate, said it wanted to assume 50% of this exemption, at a total cost of 1.6 million d 'euros. The remaining charge to be assumed by the HLM office. But a few days later, the president of the office, Jonathan Berrebi, had sent a letter to the tenants explaining that "precarious financial balances (...) as well as the lack of legal bases, do not allow the exemption of rents "
- Housing
- HLM
- Covid 19
- Bobigny
- Paris
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- Coronavirus