No More Accommodation Benefits

The government is preparing the “optimization” of the list of benefits holders.

The “complex of measures on implementation of the Program of socio-economic development of Belarus between 2016 and 2020” has been recently ratified in Belarus.

The document plans “optimization of the list of categories of citizens who have a right to beneficial loans for construction or acquiring accommodation facilities” and “replacing easy-term loans with loans under the market terms with targeted state support for the expense of the budget”, for 2017.

Simply put, “optimization of categories” means reduction of categories. At present, 15 categories of benefits holders may contend for 1-5% loans, the most massive of which are families with many children, families with disabled children, and the force structures officers. We can only guess which categories they are going to “optimize”, tut.by writes.

— We have just started working on these plans, no practical decisions are in the process of development, — the representatives of the administration for housing policy of Minsk Construction and Architectural Bureau, which is in charge of “optimization”, have clarified.

However, Lukashenka has told Interior Minister Shunevich already today that he is ready to double financing for the Interior Ministry, so it seems unlikely that the “optimization” will affect the force structures.

When will they stop asking where the citizens take money from?

In 2017, it is planned to finally free the citizens’ money for purchasing and building accommodation facilities from the need to declare and the tax claims. Thus, the tax inspectorates have no right to ask a citizen where they took the money for the accommodation facility. The authorities have been promising this benefit to the citizens for many years, but the corresponding document hasn’t been adopted by now, and the date of adoption hasn’t been announced yet. This means, a tax inspectorate can force a citizen to pay extra taxes for buying an apartment or a house for the money, the origin of which cannot be confirmed.

No more affordable accommodation

No points in making accommodation available are prescribed in the document for the year 2017. It is suggested to decrease the estimated construction cost with regard to the full cycle of construction works due to optimization of expenses, in the framework of the “complex of measures”. However, the construction costs didn’t seriously affect the cost of a square meter of accommodation before, as practice shows.

Moreover, they will work on the issue of creating the agency for Housing Mortgage Lending for the development of the infrastructure of the mortgage lending market, and increasing the affordability of housing for the population.

People to pay for communications themselves

It has been said many times but the people still cannot believe it: the country desperately lacks money for electricity, roads, and water in private housing development. A housing development site near Minsk might wait for ordinary electricity for five years.

The government offers the same pattern as with gas here: to oblige the house owners participate in financing of carrying out the communications. The “complex of measures” prescribes “Preparation of suggestions on providing an opportunity of recompensing the expenses for construction, also projecting, the objects of distributive engineering and traffic infrastructure with regard to the plot of land for the individual accommodation construction, by instalments, to the citizens both in 2017 and 2018 — “Elaboration of the mechanism for financing of construction of engineering and traffic infrastructure in the areas of housing development under the terms of the state-private partnership