Translated material
General life
Moscow authorities accuse citizens of creating new communal apartments
Trying to fulfill the promise to provide each family with a separate apartment, given by the leaders of the CPSU in Soviet times, the Moscow authorities were faced with the fact that even in modern apartments the rooms are shared by owners who are not always related. First Deputy Head of the Department of Housing Policy and Housing Fund of the city Nikolai Fedoseev said that the new Housing Code allows for the creation of new communal apartments in separate apartments that are not designed for several families. “For example, if I have a three-room apartment, the law does not prohibit me from selling one room,” the official complains that in this case, the residents of the newly opened communal apartment can also apply for resettlement and improved living conditions. Which, according to officials, nullifies the attempts of the capital’s authorities to get rid of communal apartments.Let us recall that this summer the capital’s authorities announced that they would speed up the process of relocating communal apartments . Over the past 13 years, their number has decreased only by about three times, and in the next seven years, officials hope to “eliminate communal housing as a class.” At least in the most densely populated Central Administrative District (CAO) of the capital in terms of the number of communal apartments. So, if in 1995 there were 35 thousand communal apartments in the city center, or 17% of the total housing stock of the Central Administrative District, now the number of densely populated apartments is about 12 thousand, or 6%. More than 33 thousand families, or almost 60 thousand people, live in them. At the same time, 5.4 thousand residents of communal apartments are in line to improve their living conditions.
According to the Prefect of the Central District, Sergei Baidakov, the first stage of the district de-densification program, which primarily provides for the resettlement of those on the waiting list, will allow the number of communal apartments to be reduced to 8.8 thousand by 2014. This will require the construction of at least 1.3 thousand social apartments. “It is planned to continue work on the elimination of communal apartments where people outside the queue live after 2014,” added Mr. Baidakov, specifying that this will require at least another 800 thousand square meters. m of housing.
In general, in Moscow, according to the Department of Housing Policy and Housing Fund of the city, there are more than 90 thousand communal apartments. Now the department of housing policy and housing stock, according to Mr. Fedoseev, “is working on a program that will provide resources for the resettlement of communal apartments in the city as a whole and in administrative districts.” In particular, it specifies one of the mechanisms of de-densification - attracting investors and realtors to the resettlement of communal apartments. It is assumed that investors will be able to obtain the right to engage in the city program for the resettlement of communal apartments, part of the area of which apparently belongs to the city, on a competitive basis.
However, officials are concerned about both the reluctance of city residents to leave their homes and exchange communal apartments in the center for separate housing on the periphery of the Central Administrative District, and the widespread formation of new communal apartments. According to Nikolai Fedoseev, city lawyers are working on a mechanism that would prevent owners from selling rooms in their apartments. It is possible that, along with the resettlement program, officials will prepare a package of relevant amendments to the Housing Code of the Russian Federation. Moreover, communal apartments, according to city authorities, damage the image of Moscow. “When our colleagues from Europe are told that we have communal apartments, they cannot understand for a long time what it is, how to translate it. How can people who are complete strangers to each other live in the same apartment?” - Mr. Fedoseev complained.
Unlike officials, city deputies do not dramatize the situation and do not see anything wrong with the fact that, given the unaffordable prices for Moscow real estate, citizens independently purchase at least rooms. “These are not new communal apartments,” Mikhail Moskvin-Tarkhanov, chairman of long-term development and urban planning of the Moscow City Duma, told Vremya Novostei, “but the development of a private sector system.”