The government plans to build social housing in Ukraine and rent it for 25-30 per cent of the family income
The new housing reform in Ukraine should do away with the Soviet legacy of queues for flats, where more than 600,000 families are now, the head of the Rada committee, Olena Shulyak, has said, announcing the creation of a system of social housing and a single digital platform.
The Ukrainian parliament has passed in the first reading the draft law "On the basic principles of housing policy", which will radically change approaches to providing citizens with housing. According to the head of the Verkhovna Rada committee for the organisation of state power, Olena Shulyak, the current Housing Code is morally outdated and does not meet modern realities. This is reported by RBC-Ukraine.
In 1983, the Housing Code was adopted, it began to work on 1 January 1984. Since then, it has been amended on a point-by-point basis, but the concept that worked in the Soviet Union, does not work in the realities of today, - said the MP.
The scale of the problem is impressive - today more than 600 thousand Ukrainian families are on housing waiting lists. The Russian invasion has only aggravated the situation: almost 5 million officially registered internally displaced persons need a roof over their heads, and more than 60 million square metres of housing have been damaged or destroyed.
The central innovation will be the emergence in Ukraine of the institution of social housing for low-income families.
These are different categories of people with small incomes. A lot of families have fallen into a difficult situation because of the full-scale invasion. And all these people will be able to rent such social housing. The rent will depend on the family's income - it will be no more than 25-30 per cent," Shulyak explained.
The management of social housing is planned to be transferred to local communities with the formation of revolving funds. The funds from the rent will be used for the operation and maintenance of the housing stock. The European Investment Bank is already ready to provide 400 million euros for the construction of the first pilot projects of community-owned social housing.
Housing reform is part of Ukraine's European integration commitments and an indicator of the Ukraine Facility programme. As part of this Ukrainian plan, which must be implemented by 2027, the country will receive 50 billion euros of European funding.
By the end of the year this draft law should become a law - the Verkhovna Rada should adopt it, the President should sign it, and the Cabinet of Ministers will start its implementation, - stressed Olena Shulyak.
An important element of the reform will be digitalisation of the housing sector. It is planned to create a large analytical digital housing system, which for the first time will collect in one place all the information on public, service and social housing, private housing, waiting lists and programmes "eDom", "eRehabilitation". The system will work on the principle of "Single Window", where a person, having entered his/her data, will receive optimal proposals for improving housing conditions.