Who are the biggest landowners in Luxembourg?
While a new reform around property tax should see the light of day this year in Luxembourg, the Observatoire de l’Habitat has revealed the names of the 49 main actors holding building land potential.
Housing remains one of the main concerns of Luxembourgers and has been for many years. If Xavier Bettel’s government has understood this well, with a future property tax reform to free up building land, the Observatoire de l’Habitat delivers an even more in-depth analysis to understand who owns this land that is still buildable? in Luxembourg.
As a reminder, the country currently has 3,750 hectares of residential land. Enough for the next 25 years. If the owners hear it that way.
But who are they? In fact, these are Ithe natural persons who own the majority of building land in Luxembourg (55.3%), followed by private companies (20.8%).
The graph below shows the part of the total surface area available, including residential areas, but also business areas and public buildings and facilities.
Taken together, the public and parapublic owners (State, municipalities and funds) account for 21.4% of the total area. This reflects the significant proportion of these owners in the activity zones and the zones of public buildings and facilities.
Indeed, if we detail these data a little more, the State, the municipalities and the Funds hold 59.3% of the surfaces in the areas of public buildings and facilities and 42.6% of surface areas in activity zones, against only 13.5% in residential areas (residential and mixed areas).
It is therefore in residential areas that the portion of building land held by private owners (84.2%) is the highest.
Fewer private players than in 2016
The vast majority of land available for housing is still held by private owners, whether natural or legal persons, according to Note 29 from the Habitat Observatoryunveiled at the end of November 2021.
In 2016, these two types of owners combined 2,586 hectares, or 87.4% of the total land potential available for housing. In 2020/2021, the area held by these two types of owners amounts to 3,140 hectares (84.2% of the area available for housing).
This slight decrease in the share of land available for housing held by private actors is explained by the increase in the share of public and para-public owners between 2016 and 2020/2021: municipalities, the State and The fund held 11.6% of building land for housing in 2016, compared to 13.5% in 2020/2021.
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In addition, even if private owners remain very much in the majority, the comparison between these two dates shows that the part held by private companies has increased (from 14.9% to 20%) while that of natural persons has decreased (from 72 .5% to 64.2%).
Two things can explain this phenomenon: transfers of land from natural persons to private companies (and to public and para-public owners), and/or the fact that the reclassification of land in residential areas between 2016 and 2020/ 2021 (or other methodological changes) affected land owned by natural persons relatively less.
Of all the owners, it was the Funds and private companies that saw their surface area of building land for housing increase the most between the two dates (+77% for the Funds, +69% for the private companies).
49 owners for 939 hectares
On the strength of this data, the Ministry of Housing provided, this Friday, January 21, the list of 49 owners with more than 5 hectares of building land for housing in Luxembourg, representative a total area of 939 hectares (i.e. 25.5% of the total building land potential for the habitat identified in 2020/2021).
Here is in detail:
More than 50 hectares (total: 361 hectares)
- Arend & Fischbach (local real estate player)
- City of Luxembourg (municipality)
- Housing Fund (fund)
- State domain (State)
- Giorgetti Group (local real estate player)
Between 25 and 50 hectares (total 223 hectares)
- Kirchberg fund (fund)
- National Society of Habitations at Bon Marché (funds)
- Tracol Immobilier (local real estate player)
- Individual 1
- Stugalux (local real estate player)
- Promobe (local real estate player)
Between 10 and 25 hectares (total: 176 hectares)
- Thomas & Piron (international real estate player)
- Kierchefong (cult-related entity)
- Niederanven, the Commune
- Exploitation Wickler Frères (local real estate player)
- Individual 2
Between 5 and 10 hectares (total: 180 hectares)
- Baumeister House
- Claude Konrath Promotions
- Rumelange, the City
- Petange, the Commune
- Individual 3
Read also ➡ Luxembourg: the race for available land
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