Housing Reform
Housing Reform
Without clear policies related to housing reform, residents cannot receive the necessary incentives and services to improve the ageing housing stock in the region. National policies, particularly in countries of the Former Soviet Union, play several key roles:
Encourage competition between state and private housing maintenance companies. Privatized companies that provide communal services - from fixing elevators to collecting the rent - are more proactive when forced to compete. Competition makes companies more willing to provide additional services (installation of heat meters and controls, water meters, weatherization, new windows, etc.).
Require installation of master heat meters in residential buildings and require the local heating company to charge on the basis of heat meter readings (as opposed to square meters in the building). Some heating companies are wary of revenue loss from heat meters and thus create barriers, such as delays in registering the meter. On the other hand, evidence suggests that willingness to pay the bills increases significantly when a meter is installed and customers believe they are paying for the heat they are truly consuming.
Encourage (perhaps most important) the creation of homeowner or condominium associations in multifamily buildings, so residents can make collective decisions to improve the efficiency of common areas, roofs and basements - where so many efficiency opportunities remain untapped.
Case in point from Lithuania
The Housing and Urban Development Foundation (HUDF) in Lithuania has been running a successful program. This program utilizes World Bank funds for lending to homeowner associations that make energy-saving improvements in multifamily buildings. HUDF has regional offices in different cities where association managers can go for advice and take out loans. The association becomes the borrower and can take out more money and make larger scale improvements which would be inaccessible to independent individuals.
However, there is a catch. Only 20 percent of Lithuania's multifamily buildings are organized into legally recognized homeowner associations, so the vast majority of the market is not eligible and cannot be tapped. It is an example of how more proactive national policies - that designs incentives to create more associations - would have an impact on energy efficiency. In the case of Lithuania, both the financing and the demand are available.
Russian housing reform policies
Reform of the Russian housing and communal sector started in 1992 along with adoption of the Law On Fundamentals of Federal Housing Policy. The law declared the transition of the sector to self-repayment, with residents covering all housing and communal costs. The transition was to be completed in five years, assuming rapid economic growth.
The assumption proved false. Moreover, residents' income declined. As a result, further tariff growth appeared impossible. For this reason, the new Law On Corrective Action to the Law On Fundamentals of Federal Housing Policy was adopted in 1995 and prolonged the schedule of transition from 5 to 10 years (2003).
On October 11, 2001 discussions on draft law On Corrective Action and Additions to the Law and On Federal Housing Policy Fundamentals were postponed until November. The focus of attention is residents' housing and communal payments during 2001-2008.
Hungary housing documents
In present day Hungary, the renovation of residential buildings is an increasingly urgent problem. Renovation means taking initiative, with the common representative or the property manager as the key figure. In order to complete the task successfully, various kinds of information - technical, organizational and financial - are required. With funding from USAID, the Urban Institute and the Metropolitan Research Institute in Hungary created two booklets not to cover all the difficulties of the renovation of residential buildings and the various solutions in detail, but to help the work of common representatives who are considering renovation with useful advice and practical ideas.
In the miscellaneous section of our Library you can find:
- The Role of the Local Government in the Condominium Sector
- Financial and Organizational Issues of Renovating Property
- From the Laws section you can also download
- Act CLVII/1997 on Condominiums
he Hungarian Parliament passed Act CLVII in order to promote construction of buildings with several units, improve the quality of condominiums and generate more up-to-date regulations, which are adjusted to changing political and economic relations.
Russian housing reform policies