Housing renewal and maintenance in Europe: towards a working group's agenda

Developments in housing systems and markets have led to significant challenges to the management of the European housing stock. In Western Europe, reductions in public finance and revisions of the regulatory regimes have left social landlords with the task to formulate their own asset management strategies - strategies that have to provide viable ways for keeping their housing stock in line with housing needs. In Eastern Europe, the privatisation of public housing entails new management problems related to an ageing housing stock of relatively poor quality, often concentrated in estates with mixed (public and private) ownership. In order to address these problems, we are establishing a working group within the ENHR. In this paper we work out the objectives and approach of the working group in order to facilitate and explain its activities. The paper starts with a general overview of challenges towards social housing management in Western and Eastern Europe. From these general developments we distract themes that are interesting for international collaborative research within the research group. These themes are worked out into general research questions, approach and results. On the basis of these themes, we will invite researchers and practitioners to work on our projects.