Article by Jean Rossiaud in collaboration with CODHA
Codha in figures:
1995: 12 homes, 1 building and 1 residents’ association, 100 members
2022: 761 homes, 20 buildings, 6090 members, including 1090 registered in a current project and 3815 on the waiting list
2024: 834 homes, 21 buildings, 7000 members, including 1200 registered in a project and 4400 on the waiting list
Codha, one of Europe’s leading participatory housing cooperatives, celebrated its 30th anniversary this year. Riding the wave of squats in Geneva in the 80s, and the movement for affordable housing supported by trade unions and left-wing parties, Codha was among the first to reinvent associative housing, autonomous from public authorities and the real estate world, fundamentally based on the principle of self-management, then participation. Over the past thirty years, Codha has maintained its position as a pioneer and an example in Europe.
In the 80s, Geneva was the scene of major real estate speculation. Apartments became unaffordable for the middle and lower classes, and especially for young people from all walks of life, aspiring in a post-68 spirit to emancipate themselves from their parents and “invent their own lives”.
The vacancy rate for rental accommodation is extremely low, and paradoxically, many overpriced buildings are left empty; the tenants’ movement is strong, but it only looks after… tenants… Parliament and the government (which contains two socialists out of seven ministers) are divided. The movement against the housing crisis is mobilized and able to gather thousands of people in the streets… demonstrations that stop in front of empty buildings, while squatters settle in, lasting occupations, secured by the crowd. The police don’t evacuate buildings until the owner (who is usually bankrupt) has a concrete project and financing. Geneva has thus become the most squatted city in Europe, in proportion to its size and population. The squats gave rise to a veritable counter-culture, a musical and artistic avant-garde. They also provided collectively managed housing for people who would otherwise have been deprived of it. But sooner or later, they are likely to be evacuated. Putting the right to housing into practice requires activists to get organized, offering immediate, concrete solutions.
More and more people are becoming interested in the concept of self-managed communal housing, which is seen as more supportive, more creative and a way out of the social isolation of modernity. The housing crisis particularly affects students, who find themselves in the vanguard of the mobilization.
Parallel to the squat movement, a new student cooperative, CIGUË, is proposing to the authorities to help them convince developers and landlords to make empty buildings available to them on a temporary basis (this system will be called a “loan-to-use lease” or “contract of trust”), while they obtain the necessary authorizations and financing to renovate and re-let. But in Geneva, procedures can take years. CIGUË houses hundreds of students for free… or almost free… since each one pays a modest sum to the cooperative… which will eventually enable it to raise enough funds of its own to build its own buildings. A model is born. But CIGUË only deals with student housing. It was therefore necessary to offer this model to everyone, not just students.
Le Graal: “the Group for the Promotion of Associative Action in Housing” is formed, organizes a cycle of conferences around associative housing and invites players from all over Europe. The new generation has lost its link with the workers’ cooperatives of the first half of the 20th century, and is turning to more recent experiments in German-speaking Switzerland.
It was against this backdrop, and on the strength of this social experience, that Codha was founded in Geneva in 1994, bringing together residents of several squats, CIGUË and budding housing cooperatives. Its articles of association were inspired by those of the Zurich-based Wogeno cooperative.
It starts with disillusionment: it takes too long to build in Geneva. In the first instance, Codha is unable to respond to the urgent needs and immediate life projects of its members.
Codha then redefined itself as an umbrella organization for “residents’ associations”, spearheaded by the “associative lease”: professionals (economists, architects, lawyers, social workers, etc.) work directly, usually on a voluntary basis, on cooperators’ projects, helping residents’ associations to build or renovate several buildings.
However, the legal framework was not appropriate for cooperative and participative housing, and it took Codha to mobilize the political arena until the associative lease became part of the General Housing Law. The associative lease makes it possible to rent a building to an association of habitantˑeˑs who collectively take care of the technical and administrative management, in total autonomy. This recipe, which worked for a while, has also shown its limits.
From expansion to the limits of self-management
In order to centralize the distribution of land under building rights or long leases leased for long periods (99 years) by the State, eight cooperatives organized themselves and in 1999 created the Groupement des coopératives d’habitation genevoises (GCHG). Codha then obtained several plots of land on which to build 4 buildings which, in 10 years’ time, will be able to accommodate almost 80 homes, and all this with a team that is still entirely voluntary.
Codha is experiencing a second growth crisis in 2010. Total self-management is wearing it out! The habitantˑeˑs feel overwhelmed and declare that they do not have the necessary skills, to take on all the tasks in a way that is both professional and socially responsible.
The compromise: the habitantˑeˑs associations retain autonomy, but Codha collects the rents. The concierge’s role is separated into two functions: cleaning and social concierge. A position of building coordinatorˑeur is created, whose role is to report technical or human problems before they get too big.
With a new wave of expansion, the participatory charter is recast in 2013: from now on, Codha does the management, the banking, and pays off the mortgage. The Committee of activists is transformed into a Management Team, which gradually hires a team of collaboratorsˑtrices. Task specifications are drawn up for each activity: management for new projects, rental management of existing stock, the mission is a sizeable one. The Codha Committee is now made up of 15 people, 10 cooperatriceˑeurˑs, housed and non-housed, as well as the five members of the Management Team. The latter do not take part in budget discussions and voting. In the project phase, future residents are invited to express their views on specific themes, although certain strategic choices are left to the architect or the committee.
Participation is organized by the cooperators in various working groups within each residents’ association: GT kitchen garden, GT common space, GT mobility, GT kitchens, GT governance, GT party…
In 2018, to facilitate participation on the scale of a large cooperative, Codha is creating a tool for online participation. The Participation Digital Platform (PNP) is custom-developed for habitantˑeˑs associations. This software is an interactive suggestion box, featuring shared agendas, the ability to launch and register for events, reserve common spaces, share objects… PNP is also used in the project phase. What’s more, this tool facilitates the management of incidents and technical problems for building management.
Review after 30 years
Since its creation, Codha has always been able to get more housing, and therefore more tenants, out of the housing market. It has done so while remaining at the forefront of ecological and social innovation. It is less radical, particularly in terms of self-management, than it was in its early days. It has opened the door for many small cooperatives, who were critical of its governance, to create their own model, and thus broaden the family of participatory and self-managed cooperatives in Geneva. In Switzerland, and in Geneva in particular, the vast majority are tenants (subject to the goodwill of their landlords) and a small minority are homeowners (who are more often than not at the mercy of their banks). Only in a cooperative can a resident never be at the mercy of his or her landlord or banker. What’s more, as the cooperative collectively repays the mortgage, individual rents tend to fall, or surpluses are democratically reinvested in collective improvements (party rooms, guest rooms, vegetable gardens, etc.) or in landscaping around the buildings. The cooperative is “Mehr als wohnen”, as we say in German-speaking Switzerland.
Recent awards and distinctions
– Prix Binding pour la biodiversité, 2023 : Quartier de Pra Roman, Lausanne
– Prix de l’Immobilier romand, 2021 : Pra Roman (Lausanne), Pont 12 architectes: 1st prize “Building sustainability and ecology”
– Distinction Romande d’Architecture – DRA 4: Rigaud 55 in Chêne-Bougeries, Geneva, Bonhôte & Zapata architectes
– Prix de l’Immobilier romand, 2022 : Ecoquartier Stand (Nyon), Farra Zoumboulakis architectes: 1er prix “Logements d’utilité publique”
– Prix des 100 ans de CHS, Coopératives d’habitation Suisse, 2019: Immeuble Ensemble (Chêne-Bougeries, GE), Liengme & Mechkat architectes: 1er Prix “Partenariat”
