The housing crisis

Two of the major challenges facing the community at present are a fragile economy and a severe lack of low-priced accommodation. Clearly, the two are interlinked. However, while the economy has faced serious stresses in the past – the decision of the Sri Aurobindo Society to cut off funding to the community in the mid 1970s precipitated our first economic crisis – the housing crisis has crept up on us. In the early years, finding accommodation was not difficult. The accommodation tended to be very simple, but this was the ethos of those times, and nobody seemed to feel disadvantaged living in a temporary ‘capsule’ under keet.

Of course, there were also more ‘luxurious’ houses in places like Certitude and Auromodele, but this form of permanent housing did not become the norm until the late 1980s, when settlements like Samasti and Surrender began to be built. This coincided with a new push to build the city, and Auroville’s town planning service underlined the new approach by forbidding new keet constructions in the city.

Inevitably, the costs of constructing accommodation rose steeply. This had a number of consequences. As most individuals had to pay substantial amounts for constructing ‘their’ houses, it encouraged a more ‘proprietorial’ attitude, and the ability of Aurovilians to move freely between houses and communities, which had been a feature of the early days, disappeared almost completely. Again, the increased time it took to build a ‘pukka’ house (a keet capsule could be put up in a week; new houses took a minimum of 6-9 months) as well as a more complicated process for getting construction permission meant that less accommodation was being built, even though the population continued to grow.

The housing squeeze had begun

In 1995, the first Newcomer units were built. While Newcomers could officially only live in these units for a maximum of two years, it gave them a breathing space to explore the community and find ways to resolve the accommodation challenge. However, there were never enough units and it did not solve the underlying accommodation problem, which was a mismatch between the quantity and types of accommodation available and the financial resources of many Aurovilians and Newcomers.

To underline this, the present price of a studio apartment in new developments is around 20 lakhs rupees ($30,000), which rises to between 38-54 lakhs for a 3 bedroom apartment. Today, apparently only six Newcomers can afford a house above 20 lakhs, and none of these are young people. One consequence is that out of 71 Newcomer units, 47(64%) are occupied at present by people who did not move out when they became Aurovilians because they could not find another place to live.

An Aurovilian recently made a calculation of how long it could take a young prospective Newcomer living in France to save 20 lakhs, which is the minimum price for many current housing projects. His answer? Eleven years. Actually, it could take longer because this optimistically assumes the young person on a basic salary could save 200 Euros a month, and 20 lakhs does not include the cost of a visa, plane ticket and all the initial expenses associated with living in Auroville. These can be quite steep, which is why 20% of Newcomers over the past three years have left Auroville because they were unable to find work to support themselves.

But the accommodation problem does not just impact Newcomers. At present, 95 adults and 52 youth are on a waiting list for housing. Many of these do not have sufficient funds to ‘buy’ the housing on offer.

The housing squeeze is amplified by the fact that people without adequate resources continue to join the community (this year, there will be forty new people joining Auroville who have limited funds for accommodation), and by the fact that housing tastes have changed. Keet constructions are now allowable once again in the city area, but there is hardly any demand for them as many people now prefer a higher standard of accommodation that, inevitably, is more costly.

The Entry and Housing Services are the most exercised by this issue. One of the conditions specified by the Entry Service in the past for becoming an Aurovilian was that a Newcomer should have found permanent housing within Auroville. But this has become increasingly difficult, both because of the lack of available housing and because some Newcomers who initially declared they had money for housing declare, after a year of living here, they have no more resources or no longer want to invest in their housing. A few years ago, the situation was so bad that the Entry Service decided to close Auroville for some time to new applicants because there was insufficient housing (The new Entry Policy, see AV Today number 322, no longer specifies an automatic linkage between having housing and becoming an Aurovilian, but it is still unclear how this will be worked out in practice.)

It’s a quandary. Auroville wants to develop, and to do this it requires many more young people, but they cannot pay the costs of the new houses or many existing ones. In fact, we are creating a situation where only people of a certain economic level (which generally means middle-aged or older) can join the community, while Newcomers and volunteers are pushed to seek cheaper accommodation in the surrounding villages.

The response

Of course, attempts have been made to find solutions. For example, the number of Newcomer units have increased. There have also been Government of India funded projects, like Inspiration, that have allowed the community to provide free accommodation to some Aurovilians. Meanwhile, Mitra Hostel provides low-priced accommodation for volunteers and interns. Other projects, like the Botanical Gardens, also provide simple accommodation for volunteers who work there.

There has also been an experiment in which the Housing Service rented a guest house outside Auroville to provide temporary accommodation for Newcomers and volunteers. However, this was not successful.

Then there are experiments in low-cost ‘demountable’ housing. These include La Maison des Jeunes [see Auroville Today # 307] and the Pony Farm experiment, where six temporary housing units have been constructed by the Housing Service at a unit cost of between 3 – 10 lakhs. Also, two new plots for low-cost housing have recently been approved by L’Avenir where semi-permanent housing will be provided for fifteen individuals and six families.

At the same time, there have been various attempts to control housing costs. For example, the Housing Service attempts to lower the cost price of units by serving as the project holder for some projects, as well as by directly employing an architect who works for a maintenance rather than for a percentage of the total cost. Also, the 14% fraternal contribution for housing (levied on the total cost of the construction) has been lowered to 9%, with 0% contribution for constructions that cost less than Rs 18,000 per square metre.

Meanwhile, of the 186 new housing units slated to be completed between 2016 – 18, 52 will be either provided free or subsidized by the project holder or the Government of India. These include 36 units for young people in the first phase of the Humanscape project.

There is also the possibility that two 100-bed hostels will be constructed with government funding for young people.

All this would appear to be radically easing the housing situation. However, there has been criticism regarding the quality of some of the housing projects [see Auroville Today # 319], partly because of the high maintenance costs they may incur. Then again, as many of the planned new apartments will be high-cost, in the range of 20 – 45 lakhs (some of these apartments will be partially or fully furnished), even the provision of partial subsidies will put them out of the reach of many Aurovilians and Newcomers.

What has to change?

Clearly, adequate housing needs to be provided for everybody who wants to put their energy into the Auroville project, irrespective of their financial status. But how?

The mandate of the Housing Service includes providing decent housing for Aurovilians and Newcomers but it does not receive sufficient funds from the community to do this. With its present budget, it can only repair and maintain existing housing: it cannot provide any new accommodation. Given the present costs of housing in Auroville, its present annual budget of 34 lakhs would have to be greatly increased for it to begin doing this.

Other funding possibilities include units which have spare resources allocating them for housing the Aurovilians or Newcomers working there, or allocating a portion of the funds the community receives from the Government of India for housing, or even taking banking loans to construct much needed accommodation [see accompanying interview with Hemant].

Of course, reducing the costs of building should also be seen as a priority. Here more encouragement should be given to architects to experiment with cost-effective housing. Other ways of reducing costs could include setting up a centralized Auroville purchasing service for all construction projects; creating an Auroville architects service where architects work for a maintenance rather than a percentage of the overall cost of the project; and employing volunteers and Newcomers/Aurovilians in construction rather than outside external labour.

It has to be said, however, that creating an architects’ service and employing volunteers or build-your-own enthusiasts has already been experimented with, but with little success.

Team member Sauro points out that while L’Avenir does support low-cost and innovative housing projects, he is not convinced that low-cost housing is a long-term solution, partly because it may incur higher maintenance costs in the long run.

Moreover, as Sonja from Housing Service points out, some people do not want low-cost housing. “Many Newcomers and Aurovilians want single standing houses with at least a quarter acre of garden around. This is what they see old-timers have and what they feel is now the norm.”

In any case, there are limits on how much the cost of construction can be lowered. Construction costs have soared all over India in the past 25 years, which is why Sauro believes that the real solution to our housing problem lies in strengthening the Auroville economy. Clearly, a weak economy impacts the housing situation. For example, potential accommodation for young people without resources is being converted by some Aurovilians into rented accommodation as a means of supplementing their income.

And then there is the question of where to build. There is not much scope for lower-cost experimentation in the city at the present, where the main emphasis is upon constructing more apartment buildings, although L’Avenir has recently allocated two city sites for such experimentation.

Proponents of more affordable housing want new areas opened up – for example on land that needs protection from encroachment – where experimentation in constructing simpler forms of accommodation can take place.

Ideally, of course, there would be proximity to existing infrastructure for this would lower costs. In this context, building in existing communities would seem an obvious option. However, of the 169 communities of Auroville, it seems that only four (Samasti, Fraternity, Auromodele and Aspiration) welcome new people to build. And when existing accommodation does fall vacant in a community, many communities impose restrictions like no children, no pets or, as in some greenbelt communities, a need to be engaged in a specific work.

And here we approach the core of the problem. For while it is easy to blame the administrative troika of the Entry Service, Housing Service and L’Avenir for the present housing difficulties, we all have some responsibility for the situation. Whether it is individuals refusing to allow somebody to build in their community, or fencing off acres around their house, or converting rooms for high rent; or architects and contractors favouring expensive, high-end projects; or the Auroville community failing to prioritise the need for affordable housing by putting significant resources towards achieving this, the undeniable consequence is that we are making it harder and harder for young people with energy and idealism, but with limited means, to join this community.

Perhaps the real question is whether we want new people at all. But if we are serious about building this city, all of us will be asked to let go of something – of proprietorial attitudes to ‘our’ houses and estates, of planning dogmas, architectural egos, or buffer funds put aside for a ‘rainy day’ etc. – in order to create space for new energy and new ideas.

Only then can we begin actively working towards the day when the community will provide all housing free, on the basis of need, for all those who want to give their energy to the manifestation of Mother’s Auroville.

In addition, there are two more projects in the pipeline for staff apartments by SAIIER in the Cultural Zone.

New low-cost apartments of the Maison des Jeunes type are also happening in the International Zone and further low-cost housing projects are planned in the Greenbelt, Rève area and International Zone. There is also a project for a Home for Assisted living (for senior citizens) next to Arka with 8 apartments planned for the first phase.