Up to €575 million will be freed up to build over 6,000 rental homes in Flanders, half of which will be social rental homes and the rest will be affordable private rental homes, Flemish Housing Minister Matthias Diependaele's office reported on Wednesday.
The initiative aims to boost the number of quality and affordable rental homes in Flanders, according to the minister's office. It should entice private developers and housing companies, with the help of financial intervention, to build or convert affordable private and social rental housing for long-term rental.
Those who initiate such projects can benefit from the financial intervention if they realise a project with at least one-third affordable private rental housing and at least one-third social rental housing. The first ones can be submitted by the second half of the year.
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The social rental homes will be rented out through residential companies. For the rental of affordable private housing, Housing Minister Diependaele will start a new project, the cabinet reported. Tenants will receive a discount of at least 15% compared to the normal market rent, which will be based on a "digital and objective estimation model".
The maximum rent will also be capped at €900 or €1,000, depending on the location. An attestation system will be used to ensure that the affordable private rental housing will go to the right target group.
"To qualify, a tenant must meet several conditions, such as not having too high an income (€46,170 for a single person and €65,960 for a couple) and not owning any other property," the government said. "With this system of 'conventional rental', we are responding to the biggest bottleneck of the private rental market, namely sufficient affordable supply," Housing Minister Diependaele stated.
