Habiter le Commun: Gouverner la Propriété pour Garantir l'Abordabilité Permanente du Logement

Access to housing is a key issue in contemporary urban policy. Community Land Trusts (CLTs) seek to guarantee long-term access to affordable housing based on three principles: separating land ownership from housing tenure; limiting capital gains; and tripartite governance involving residents, the local community and public actors. These policies, which are neither public nor private, aim to strengthen collective control over the housing stock in order to promote access to housing for low-income households and minorities. In France, a similar institution, the Organisme de Foncier Solidaire (OFS), was incorporated into the Urban Planning Code (2014), and large cities are promoting its development in order to curb the suburbanisation of the middle class. The article examines the origins of CLTs in the United States and the development of OFSs in France within the theoretical framework of the commons and using a critical legal geography approach. Ten years after the introduction of the OFS, this analysis questions the rules of its internal and multi-level governance. Despite recurring references to CLTs, the OFS cannot be described as a commons because it prioritises access to housing for the lower middle classes and control of public funds, rather than the politicisation of affordable housing as an urban commons. Finally, the ambiguities that remain within its territorial governance raise questions about the OFS's ability to play a redistributive role in the French housing policy system, which is largely marked by neoliberalism.