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Putin pledges to settle housing problem in Russia by 2030

“A lower affordability of housing is taken by many our citizens as a lower life quality as compared with the Soviet Union,” he believes
Photo ITAR-TASS
Photo ITAR-TASS

MOSCOW, February 13 (Itar-Tass) —— Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin pledged to settle the Russian housing problem completely by 2030.

The prime minister suggested several measures to attain this goal in his article, which is published in the Komsomolskaya Pravda newspaper on Monday. “All these measures will make it possible to settle the problem to make new housing affordable not for a fourth of Russian families as now, but for 60% by 2020 and to settle the housing problem completely by 2030,” Putin wrote down.

“A lower affordability of housing is taken by many our citizens as a lower life quality as compared with the Soviet Union,” he believes. The prime minister recalled about the programs, which are being implemented to provide housing for the veterans of the Great Patriotic War, servicemen and some other categories of citizens, and pledged that all these programs will be continued.

“But it is not enough. The middle class should have an opportunity to buy new housing by means of mortgage credits. Yet the mortgage crediting is unaffordable for a greater part of the middle class, particularly in big cities, where the housing prices are overstated,” Putin pointed out.

He offers “to bring down the cost of construction not at the expense of the salary and labour protection of workers, but thanks to lower prices on building materials, the curbing on swelling prices over the corruption burden on the construction business.” “We will introduce a competitive expertise of construction projects – today many projects are shelved there literally for years. The builders can request not only for a state, but also private expertise. We will make excessive procedures for coordination and construction supervision notifying that will make it possible for the builders to save major financial resources,” the prime minister said with confidence.

“The artificial monopoly of builders and suppliers of basic building materials should be eliminated at the regional level,” he remarked. “For instance, the monopoly exists even on sand and gravel pits in some regions. For some unclear reasons these pits belong to relatives and acquaintances of officials, who ruled these regions some time ago,” the prime minister said with indignation.

“All in all, we can bring down the prices on modern comfortable housing by at least less than 20% and by 30% in some regions,” Putin believes.

The prime minister also calls for drawing a large amount of land plots in economic circulation thanks to making ‘the agglomeration radius’ of big cities broader and the confiscation of these lands from those state-run organizations, which do not use these lands. “No sacred cows should be in this issue. Meanwhile, the land should be provided to those, who build social, cost-saving housing and social facilities for free (in exchange for the limited selling price of housing),” Putin said, noting that “the government will present a relevant program not later than in autumn this year.”

The prime minister noted that “the mortgage crediting rates should go down along with the decline in the inflation rate.” “Saving mechanisms like German building and loan associations should be developed. We launched several regional pilot projects in this sphere and will expand them. Finally, we will expand a program to subsidize the interest rate of mortgage credits for young families and budget-financed workers. The Russian authorities can allocate for these purposes the financial resources, which can be saved after the construction of Olympic sites in Sochi, APEC summit sites in the Russian Far East is complete, the program to provide Russian officers with housing is finalized,” Putin remarked.

Meanwhile, he believes that Russia “should create a civilized market of housing for rent.” “For this purpose the creation of specialized companies should be promoted by developers and the creation of independent companies should be encouraged as well. To create standard contracts, which guarantee the rights of long-term renters,” the Russian prime minister noted, adding that “for people with low incomes we will implement the programs for the development of non-profit housing rent.”