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The Housing Construction Assistance Fund will be headed by an experienced specialist in other people’s property
The Housing Construction Assistance Fund, which should be operational in Russia by the end of this year, will be headed by Alexander Braverman, currently the head of the commission for the development of the affordable housing market under the Presidential Council for National Projects. Deputy Minister of Regional Development Sergei Kruglik unexpectedly announced this at yesterday's press conference. According to him, Mr. Braverman’s candidacy has already been approved, but “the issue of appointment will be decided after the holiday season.” Since 1996, Alexander Braverman has held various positions in the State Property Committee, then the Ministry of Property (with a break in 1999-2000), and in 2004 he resigned as First Deputy Minister of Property Relations.Let us recall that the law “On the Federal Fund for Assistance to Housing Development” was signed by the president last week. The fund will have to conduct an audit of land suitable for housing construction and create a land fund. In this case, it will be necessary, in particular, to seize inefficiently used areas from federal ministries and departments. It is expected that due to this it will be possible to increase the supply of land for development and partially reduce the cost of construction. Sergei Kruglik yesterday called the “shortage of territories for construction” one of the main factors in slowing down the pace of housing commissioning. The Deputy Minister emphasized that in the first half of the year 21.7 million square meters were commissioned in Russia. meters of housing, which exceeds the same indicators of last year by only 2.9%, while last year the 2006 indicators were exceeded by 34.8%. The largest decrease in the pace of housing construction was noted in Moscow (50.7%) and St. Petersburg (19.6%) - the most problematic regions in terms of the allocation of new plots for development.
In connection with the creation of a fund to promote housing construction, at the beginning of April the government froze any transactions with land plots that are federally owned or owned by federal structures. This ban applies to lands within populated areas, as well as areas directly adjacent to city boundaries. The head of the Ministry of Regional Development, Dmitry Kozak, previously said that the fund would begin “expropriating” land in September. After withdrawal, the plots will be transferred to the authorized capital of the fund or, within two years, will be placed at the disposal of the region. Subjects of the federation will be provided with land only for projects related to increasing housing construction. According to rough estimates, the fund can lay claim to assets that are fantastic even by the standards of Russian state corporations - about 1 million hectares of land suitable for housing construction. However, formally the fund will have the status of a non-profit structure and not a state corporation.
Despite the fact that the fund should begin its work in less than a month, the criteria by which the interdepartmental government commission will assess the degree of efficiency of land use by its current owner have not yet been fully determined. The future head of the fund, Mr. Braverman, previously mentioned that “the government will issue a resolution” on this issue, but even the timing of the adoption of such a document is still unknown. In this regard, some critics, including Galina Khovanskaya, a member of the Duma construction committee, are worried about the fate of scientific and educational institutions, institutes and academies. Many of them inherited vast land holdings from the Soviet regime, the use of which may well be considered ineffective.