Affordable Housing as Productive Urban Infrastructure: A Two-Stage Framework for Municipal Investment Appraisal in Catalonia

This article develops RIVAM (Retorno Integral de la Vivienda Asequible Municipal; Integrated Return of Municipal Affordable Housing), an ex-ante appraisal framework. Stage 0 screens municipal housing stress, labour demand, demographic pressure, supply constraints, and delivery capacity. Stage 1 separates six accounts: economic activity; public finance and assets; household affordability; labour and productivity; social and environmental outcomes; territorial and community outcomes. An illustrative Catalan programme combines official 2021 input–output coefficients, 2026 protected-housing ceilings and a Barcelona project-cost proxy. A EUR 100 million capital envelope funds 395 whole dwellings at the reference cost. With 90% construction demand and an unadjusted 2021 price reference, associated output is EUR 153.9 million and direct construction value added EUR 32.4 million. At a scenario market rent of EUR 18/m2/month, the household rent gap’s present value is EUR 45.98 million over 30 years at 3% real. These are conditional accounting results, not forecasts or locally identified causal effects. Sensitivities vary by construction share, price adjustment, discounting, rent gap growth, costs, and occupancy delays. The contribution is an auditable decision sequence connecting local suitability to separate financial, distributional and outcome accounts without adding incompatible returns into one multiplier.