The promised one has been waiting for seven years

The city authorities have decided on the timing of the liquidation of communal apartments

The Moscow authorities are ready to fulfill the well-known promise of the leaders of the CPSU to provide each family with a separate apartment with a delay of only 15 years. The capital's communal apartments, which remain mostly in the city center, are given at most another seven years by officials. “I think that by 2015 we will get rid of communal apartments,” Prefect of the Central Administrative District Sergei Baidakov told Interfax yesterday, thereby announcing a new social project of the mayor’s office.

According to Mr. Baydakov, over the past 13 years the number of communal apartments in the capital has decreased only three times. Thus, in 1995, the number of communal apartments in the central part of the capital amounted to 35 thousand, or 17% of the total housing stock of the Central Administrative District. And despite the fact that the authorities annually dealt with the decondensation of intra-apartment space, the Central District still accounts for 12 thousand communal apartments. However, now, the prefect claims, the authorities are seriously thinking about such a global task as “the elimination of communal apartments as a class.” “I think that we are quite capable of solving this in the next 7-10 years,” he said, somewhat disappointing those who are looking forward to parting with neighbors with whom they have to jostle in the kitchen and share bathrooms. On the other hand, as Mr. Baidakov noted, “the program in its political significance is comparable to the liquidation of the Khrushchev era,” which means it is possible that at the city hall level the deadlines may be tight.

The fact that the initiative to speed up the program of liquidation of communal apartments came directly from Mayor Yuri Luzhkov and that it was initially supposed to be completed within three to four years was told to Vremya Novostey by the chairman of the commission on long-term development and urban planning of the Moscow City Duma, Mikhail Moskvin-Tarkhanov. According to him, the mayor gave the task of assessing the scale of the upcoming resettlement to the prefect of the most populous district in terms of the number of communal apartments three months ago - at a meeting of the coordinating council for the reconstruction of the central part of the city. According to the deputy, communal apartments in the center make up two-thirds of all city residential premises inhabited by unrelated families. The number of Moscow families who share the total area of ​​an apartment with neighbors is 7-8%.

“Even if we take that two or three families live in each communal apartment - and this is now a more common density, although there are quite large communal apartments, then this is about 60 thousand families,” - Mr. n Moskvin-Tarkhanov. In his opinion, the calculations of the Central Administrative District Prefecture have yet to be discussed in the Moscow government, and the deputy does not rule out that due to the large volumes of upcoming resettlement, they will be considered “realistic.” However, perhaps the city will find reserves to speed up the process. “Until now, the process of resettling communal apartments has been latent, but now we are reaching a new level,” said Mikhail Moskvin-Tarkhanov. “At least you can completely get rid of old communal apartments in six or seven years.”

However, one of the main problems for the authorities can be caused by the residents of communal apartments themselves, who want to get new living space in the center. Nikolai Fedoseev, first deputy head of the city’s policy and housing department, recently spoke about the fact that such “inconsistencies” already exist. According to him, “in many cases, residents themselves refuse to move from communal apartments.” “One of the reasons complicating the resettlement process,” officials believe, “is the disinterest of some room owners in moving to other housing, since the part of the communal apartment they own is not their only home, especially if the room is located in the city center. It's profitable for them." That is why communal apartments are not only still not empty, but are even actively in demand in the rental and purchase and sale market of capital housing.

“Given the high price zone, in which, as a rule, houses with communal apartments are located, their residents expect to be resettled commercially, when their apartments are bought by an investor,” Mr. Moskvin-Tarkhanov explained the motivation of the residents of the center. In addition, city residents are in no hurry to offer the authorities to leave their homes in a shared apartment because, receiving new housing as a participant in the program for improving housing conditions, they risk ending up on the outskirts of Moscow. In the event of inevitable resettlement from communal apartments, their inhabitants can only hope that the house will be subject to reconstruction. Then the city authorities can still guarantee that the displaced will remain in the area of ​​residence.

Yulia KHOMCHENKO