People in the Belgorod Region have welcomed the national project on affordable and comfortable housing. They are hoping that it will help resolve their urgent housing problems, and are optimistic about it because much has already been done in the region to tackle the issue. The main achievement has been getting three powerful forces—the government, business, and the public—to work together.
Governor of the Belgorod Region Yevgeny Savchenko describes the prospects for this national project in an interview with Vladimir Abrosimov.
Question: Mr. Savchenko, what can you tell me about housing and public utilities in your region? What are housing conditions like for the local people?
Answer: In my opinion and that of independent experts, the region's housing facilities are in a more or less good shape. We are building many new dwellings and carrying out annual repairs. Under the plan, by the end of the year we will have spent about 400 million rubles. A total of 675 buildings will undergo capital repairs, and another 107 will receive comprehensive repairs. During the first seven months of this year, we spent 224.4 million rubles, of which 21.5 million paid for the replacement of shabby and unsafe dwellings.
However, we do not want to settle for buildings in "more or less good shape." The regional program for improving living standards made it very clear that bodies of authority and local self-government should give priority to the housing problem. Moreover, we realized that it was essential to involve the business community and the public in this project. It took us several years to create the institutional, legal and financial groundwork for this, and I am proud to say that we are already reaping the first fruits of our efforts.
Question: Are you referring to the scale of annual housing construction? In Russia, the Belgorod Region is second only to the Moscow Region in housing construction per capita…
Answer: No, I don't mean just that. Every year we build 700,000-800,000 square meters of comfortable housing. Our region is one of the very few in this country to build not only dwellings but also whole micro districts with a door-to-door heating system. We do not want to waste money like everyone else on central heating networks. The owners of apartments with such heating pay three times less for utilities and will not have their hot water switched off for planned repairs, which is what happens every year elsewhere. More than 5,000 apartments in Belgorod are connected to this heating system.
However, not everyone can afford such housing—our prices are almost the same as in Moscow because the region is very attractive to immigrants. For that reason, in 2003 we had to seriously discuss what we could do in the next five to seven years, and we approved a strategy for housing construction until the year 2010, when the scale of the plan will be doubled. But I'd like to emphasize that this is not the main point of our strategy.
Today, there are more than 1.5 million people in the region. Two-thirds live in multi-storied housing, and one-third in their own low-rise houses. According to preliminary estimates, this ratio will be reversed by 2015. Starting in 2007, we are going to commission 1,000,000 square meters of low-rise housing a year.
The advantages of this approach are obvious. Today, the concept of having your own house enjoys tremendous popularity here, and turning it into a reality is a regional priority.
Question: Your own house. The idea sounds appealing but…Answer: But too difficult to implement? It has never been easy to build a house, and today it is even more difficult. We are well aware of the difficulties, and that is why at the start of our conversation I emphasized the need to create the right conditions. I think the conditions we have created are unprecedented in modern Russia.
We have earmarked 13,000 hectares of land for housing construction and provided all the necessary land tenure papers. There are about 80 residential areas under construction with over 30,000 building plots. Each residential area has its own plan, and all of them require land to be allocated for social and cultural facilities. Schools, kindergartens, drug stores and supermarkets will be built near high-rise dwellings. The ratio between high- and low-rise buildings in residential areas will be 4 to 6. Each residential area will accommodate 2,000-2,500 people. This is the optimal size for effectively controlling the housing stock, as well as for self-government. The remotest construction site will be no more than 15 km from the downtown area.
Having paid for the paperwork (which costs 10,000-15,000 rubles), a resident of the region can receive a plot of land and start building a house. We have been providing infrastructure for dwelling areas for more than a year now. Last year, we built 700 km of water, gas, and electricity supply networks. This year, we are planning to increase this figure to 900 km. All in all, different sources have provided about one billion rubles for this purpose. The homeowner takes part in building utility networks for his site, but it is not responsible for more than 30% of overall expenditures. This amounts to 60,000-65,000 rubles, which the owner pays in installments over six years. The rest is paid from the budget and by energy-delivery companies. This is a striking example of partnership between government and business.
After this infrastructure is built, residential areas are provided with roads and other amenities. In 2005, about 100 km of roads were built, and that rate remains the same this year.
Last year, we commissioned 830,000 square meters of floor space, of which about 60% was for individual houses. This is about 17% more than the year before. This year, we are going to increase this figure to more than 900,000 square meters. Today more than 13,000 local families started building their own housing. So many dwellings are being built around major cities—Belgorod, Stary Oskol, and Gubkin—that they look like one big construction site. Hundreds of thousands of jobs have been created.
Question: Mr. Savchenko, for all the importance of infrastructure, the main task is still to build a house. Does the government help the homeowners with money?
Answer: Certainly. Many would not be able to do much without support. We have had an individual housing construction fund for more than 12 years. During this period, it has helped more than 30,000 families build new homes. A consumer credit cooperative called "My Own House" was established two years ago. It already has 2,500 members. These are mostly public-sector employees, and almost one third are young people. The lending terms are better than at any bank—members have to save a third of the required sum, and the cooperative will lend them the rest at an interest rate of one percent a year for a period of seven years.
About half of the cooperative's members have received loans and started the construction of their own houses. All in all, this year the fund is planning to lend 350 million rubles, and the cooperative 450 million, which makes a total of 800 million rubles.
In addition to that, we provide a lump sum grant of 100,000 rubles to families on the birth of their third child when the husband or wife is a member of the cooperative. As of today, 89 families have received it.
We have extended benefits for housing construction to families with many children. Thus, if the family has three children, it receives 100,000 rubles; for four children the aid goes up to 200,000 rubles, and for five or more to 300,000 rubles. This money can be used to make the first payment to the cooperative. Many have paid it and started building their homes.
Question: But what about multi-storied buildings? Have you stopped building them altogether?
Answer: No, we haven't. We will continue building them to replace shabby and unsafe buildings. They will have more floors and will be provided with parking lots, while infrastructure facilities, shops, cafes, etc. will be located on the first floor.
The your-own-house program provides for the construction of three- to four-storied buildings next to low-rise houses. Social facilities will be located on the first floor. Corporate contractors—big construction companies like Domostroitelnaya kompaniya, Belgorodstroymontazh, and ZhBK-1, are already working there. They are also in charge of the living environment. We want every dwelling area to be a comfortable place to live. Its infrastructure should meet all modern requirements and be the same quality as in cities. Big business has shown itself to be socially responsible.
In January-July 2006, 3,881 apartments with a total area of 338,500 square meters were built in the region—a 24% increase over the same period the year before. All in all, in our region we are building 133 multi-storied houses with a total area of about one million square meters, and more than 13,600 individual dwellings with an area of about two million square meters. You can see that the average area of an individual house is about 150 square meters, and these meters are not under the clouds but are on land—the minimum size of a plot for a house is 1500 square meters. It is also important to have land, isn't it?
Question: Large-scale housing programs always require new construction technologies. Does the Belgorod construction industry use them?
Answer: Our construction industry has a solid base but the your-own-house program required the development of new technologies that could reduce construction costs and upkeep expenses for individual houses. We set up an experimental site in the Novosadovy residential area to test several kinds of building materials and structures.
Take, for instance, prefabricated wooden houses based on Canadian technology. They did very well even during the past year's severe winter, and they are a comfortable place to be all year round. They are warm and easy to make. It takes a team of five only two weeks to build one, and another two or three weeks to decorate it. Moreover, such houses are cheaper than those made of our traditional materials—brick and concrete. The building company Belgorodstroymontazh bought an assembly line to produce 50,000 square meters of such prefabricated houses a year, and they are already under construction in the Magistralny residential area. There are people willing to buy them. The cost of one square meter is 14,000 rubles.
There is another new building material called teplosten (warm wall). It consists of expanded clay blocks filled with foam polystyrene. Our machine-building plant in the town of Shchebekino produces equipment for manufacturing it. A block-production line has already been installed in the regional center of Rovenki. This material insulates very well. It is not expensive to produce and is cheaper to use in construction—you don't have to spend money on cranes.
Another promising system is the Russian Wall. This is foam polystyrene reinforced on both sides. It is mounted and plastered, turning into a durable and warm structure.
Our construction industry is capable of meeting contractors' demands for all types of building materials in any quantity.
Question: Improving housing and utilities is a major part of the national project. What is your comment about the situation in this area?
Answer: Our goal is to upgrade the quality and reliability of utilities, improve the environment, and create stable and effective mechanisms for attracting private investment to the modernization of communal infrastructure.
We have 282 companies dealing with housing and utilities. In 2005, we also developed such forms of self-government as condos and management companies. Utilities have given our region a lot of headaches, just like they have in every other part of the country. More than 18% of heat supply networks, 13.5% of sewage facilities, 24% of water supply systems, and 5% of electricity lines have to be replaced immediately—their service life has expired. But we hope to improve the situation in the next few years.
In 2006, the regional budget allocated more than 400 million rubles for the construction and repair of sewage and water supply systems. We have requested 606.3 million rubles from the federal budget for 2007. Today, we are drafting a program to upgrade communal infrastructure, which will be submitted for consideration to Rosstroy (the federal agency for construction and utilities). I think that the national project will be of great help in this area as well.