V Heating pipes enter the ground next to an apartment block in Krivoy Rog. ©George Georgiou/Panos Pictures
Housing Supply and Affordability Belarus encountered significant housing supply problems after the Chernobyl disaster, as around 330,000 persons had to be relocated. Targeted subsidies are provided for Chernobyl resettlement, priority groups (such as young couples, families with more than three children, disabled persons and people living in unhealthy housing) and people entitled to special status such as professional soldiers and military veterans. Resettlers can receive owner-occupied housing free of charge, while other groups may receive subsidized loans and housing vouchers. Utilities and maintenance costs are supported through non-targeted, means-tested subsidies from the state budget to the maintenance companies or utility providers24. Support to young families and those with a large number of children led to some fraudulent claims - such as mock marriages and families - to obtain housing subsidies or outright allocations. Compared to 2006, the official list of people in need of improvement of housing conditions had increased by more than 50 per cent in 2012. This, in addition to the 2011 economic crisis, led to subsidized loan approvals being suspended in June 2011, only to reappear in April 2012 after the President cut the list of state-supported persons more than twice25. As can be seen in Table 3.8, up until the end of 2011, the list was not shrinking and the spike in applications after 2005 shows the effects of these support policies. In the past, Moldovan state enterprises were responsible for housing construction but, since the reforms of the
THE STATE OF EUROPEAN CITIES IN TRANSITION 2013
refurbishment or major maintenance. Some 53,600 buildings with a total floor area of 4.8 million m2 are qualified as requiring urgent repairs. The situation is worst in the regions around Dnipropetrovsk, Donetsk, Kharkiv and Zhytomyr, as well as in the city of Odessa. In Ukraine, the average floor area per inhabitant has increased slightly in the recent years from 19.3 to 21.6 m2 for urban and from 23.5 to 26.1 m2 for rural dwellers. The percentage of urban flats in Ukraine connected to various utilities reached almost universal coverage in 2009: water supply 98.9 per cent, sewage 98.9 per cent, central heating 99.3 per cent, hot water supply 97.3 per cent and an indoor bathroom 98.0 per cent. Gas connections declined from 81.3 per cent in 1995 to 70.2 per cent in 2009. However, at the national scale only 58.8 per cent of all flats are connected to running water, 55.6 per cent to sewage treatment, 59.6 per cent to central heating and 83.1 per cent to a gas supply. Even fewer flats (41.3 per cent) are connected to a central hot water supply. In general, most units which are not connected to water supply or sewage disposal systems are in rural areas. Moreover, Ukraine experiences systemic water losses of 30-40 per cent which ranks it among the worst in Europe. Ukraine’s wastewater is another reason for concern. There are many ineffective and outdated sewage treatment plants that require major repairs and nearly 5 million m3 of sewage is discharged untreated into rivers daily.
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