Housing construction needs a boost, Belarusian President Aleksandr Lukashenko outlined the task at a meeting with the Council of Ministers on 19 August, BelTA has learned. “As we always say, Belarus is a state for the people. Therefore, all decisions should be made in the interests of the people. One of our priority tasks has been and remains the provision of housing for people. A roof over one's head is important for any person. This is especially for a young family. It is their confidence in the future,” Aleksandr Lukashenko said. According to the president, the country is constantly improving approaches to providing state support in improving housing conditions, primarily in rural areas. “We have talked a lot lately about adjusting our housing policy. We have talked about the fact that our priority has been and remains the provision of housing for families with many children, military personnel and so on. Therefore, the number one issue at today’s meeting is to simplify procedures for construction and lending of housing,” the head of state said. Aleksandr Lukashenko earlier instructed the government to take a comprehensive approach to improving the legislation in the area. He stated that the statistics on housing commissioning has been negative for the second year in a row. “Why is it so?” the president asked. According to him, in analysts' reports, one of the first reasons for the outflow of personnel from small villages is the lack of opportunity to buy their own housing or at least move into comfortable and well-furnished rental housing. “Today a new impetus should be given to housing construction in rural areas, including individual houses, construction of rental housing by enterprises for their employees. The government has put forward a whole set of innovations: from simplifying the connection to the engineering infrastructure of individual houses to expanding financial support for young families (up to 31 years old). All innovations have been considered by a council of experts, including the Council of the Republic, the State Control Committee, and the Belarus President’s Administration. However, as I know, there is no general agreement on the documents,” the head of state said. For example, Aleksandr Lukashenko said that it was not clear why the developer should be obliged to use design documentation when building individual houses in rural areas, if it was abandoned a year ago. “Therefore, today we will discuss the rationality of each change, so that people who are directly affected by these novelties know exactly how their housing issue will be solved,” the president emphasized. The head of state asked the relevant minister whether all the proposed measures would really simplify construction procedures, whether the updated legislation would help increase housing construction and how the banking sector would be involved in these procedures, whether the planned support would have sufficient funding. “All the norms should be set out in simple language, without bureaucratic hoops and changes explained in dozens of decrees,” Aleksandr Lukashenko said. “Housing policy, de-bureaucratization in housing processes is the number one issue.”
