The plenary session HOUSING AND UTILITIES SPHERE STRATEGIC DEVELOPMENT: NEW CHALLENGES AND SOLUTIONS became the pinnacle event of Day 2 during Municipal Housing Complex of Russia International Exhibition.
Evgeny Razumishkin — Vice-Governor of St. Petersburg welcomed the participants on behalf of the Governor of St. Petersburg and the Government of the city. He thanked the organisers of the event and pointed out that the Exhibition taking place after the winter season is really important. “It is a chance for the municipal housing sector to sum things up and plan prospective development. Whether snowy or sunny, the municipal housing sector is always at work,” Mr. Razumishkin said.
Olga Sharova, Director of Strategic Projects at the Ministry of Construction Industry, Housing and Utilities Sector of the Russian Federation highlighted the mission that should be pursued by every member of the industry, which is leading the industry to zero losses and giving it new development momenta. In fact, this is what the new national project INFRASTRUCTURE FOR LIFE NATIONAL PROJECT and one of its programs MUNICIPAL INFRASTRUCTURE ARRANGEMENTS are aimed at. Some of the events under this program are financially supported by the Russian Ministry of Construction, which is thanks to direct subsidizing of the regions for upgrade of their municipal housing infrastructure. According to Olga Sharova, in 2024, the Ministry allocated 600 billion rubles for these purposes.
At the same time, the Director believes that federal support means are not enough — regions should be more active in raising money within the industry, in using the opportunities offered by approved investment programs, and in finding non-budget financial means. “Local authorities should take part in formation of prospective plans for their regions and announce their requirements so that these would be included into comprehensive development schedules. It is essential as funding can only be provided for the projects that are part of such schedules,” Mrs. Sharova remarked.
Mr. Razumishkin emphasized that the municipal housing sector must not only use the support means offered by the Ministry of Construction Industry, Housing and Utilities Sector, but adopt the experience of their colleagues. For instance, St. Petersburg followed the model applied in Moscow and switched from contracted cleaning of the premises to the in-house option. The Vice-Governor insisted that the effect of this decision is quite obvious at the moment.
The municipal housing sector of St. Petersburg has its specifics, which is conditioned by lots of listed facilities. According to Evgeny Razumishkin, of 24,524 residential buildings 10+ thousand have the conservation status. This dictates certain landmarks that the city’s municipal housing economy has to follow. At the moment, some of the top-priority issues in this St. Petersburg’s sector are associated with major overhaul, management of apartment houses, and enhancement of regulation by the state using the resources of housing inspections. “We actively support stricter certification, introduction of fines and other charges for unscrupulous managing companies. Moreover, we presume that the market entry threshold has to be higher,” the Vice-Governor insisted.
“For the Russian State Duma, last year was the year of the municipal housing sector,” mentioned Svetlana Razvorotneva, State Duma Member, Deputy Chairwoman of the State Duma Committee for the Construction and Municipal Housing Sector, Chairwoman of the Board of the Public Control over the Municipal Housing Complex National Centre. Mrs. Razvorotneva told the participants of the plenary session about the main laws and draft bills that had been approved or discussed by the State Duma, and also about further plans of the lawmakers. “In 2024 and 2025, the State Duma has been zealously discussing possible reforms for the municipal housing sector. In particular, they have compiled a roadmap with 39 issues that can solve the existing problems. Many of the things on this roadmap are already being introduced and adopted,” Svetlana Razvorotneva reported.
Some of the events that have already been implemented are making significant amendments to the law about heat supply and incorporation of arrangements for municipal, social, and road facilities that must be part of comprehensive development projects. According to Svetlana Razvorotneva, this ensured sufficient synchronization of the town-planning policy and development plans for the urban and municipal infrastructures.
Moreover, she reported that at the moment the State Duma was extensively discussing improvements for the apartment houses management sphere. They have already approved the concept of informing residence owners about general meetings by means of Gosuslugi, developed and passed at the first reading certain draft bills on establishment of guarantee companies for apartment houses in critical condition, on standardization of reports related to apartment houses, as well as the register-based access for companies willing to enter the elevator maintenance market.
One of the prospective lawmaking plans announced by Mrs. Razvorotneva was introduction of a mandatory methodical guide for calculation of the minimal fee for apartment housing maintenance, separation of maintenance and current repair works, provision of extra levers for active owners so that they could control actions of managing companies, and establishment of the public property maintenance systems for villa communities.
As outlined by Alexander Gurylev, Vice-President of the National Housing Congress, the challenges encountered by managing companies are very alike with the ones that resource suppliers face. They are staff shortage, poor expertise of available employees, low payment collection rates, low cost of services and tariffs, and absence of transparent price setting. Mr. Gurylev thinks that the last (but not least) issue on this list can be solved by introduction of the minimal cost of works that have to be performed in apartment houses. “Rules and standards that this sector adheres to must be clear for both the business community and the customer. Payers need to understand what they can require for their money and what they can demand,” stated Alexander Gurylev.
Upgrade of the municipal housing infrastructure in Russian regions is constrained due to lack of financial support but also because of inactivity of local governments when it comes to initiation of such projects. Anna Fedoseeva, Director for Development at Rosvodokanal Managing Company, is sure that educational campaigns at the local level can help demonstrate how promising concession agreements are. Mrs. Fedoseeva believes that a financial model of this type is both economically reasonable and profitable. Moreover, it can help fulfil social obligations and provide top-quality heat and water supply, as well as water discharge services to consumers. Rosvodokanal is currently instrumenting concession contracts in 10 Russian regions, and (according to Anna Fedoseeva) is developing new investment projects and reaching out to new regions despite the high key rate.
At the same time, financial institutions and companies are dynamically joining the municipal housing sector. For instance, DOM.RF has extended the infrastructure bonds mechanism, which is a popular source of non-budget financial support for infrastructure-related projects in Russian regions, to the municipal housing sector. As outlined by Alla Ivanova, Head of Infrastructure Bonds at DOM.RF, right now this mechanism is being used to implement 21 projects in 14 regions of Russia with an aggregate cost of over 47 billion rubles. Some of them are reconstruction of heat supply networks in the Sakhalin Region, of waste water and water supply systems in Lipetsk, and construction of the electric grid infrastructure in the Nizhny Novgorod Region.
Starting with 2025, DOM.RF is launching a new program for the municipal housing sphere, which is privileged leasing of municipal and building vehicles. Both state and municipal authorities can use this offer and become lessees, and so can unitary enterprises, budgetary companies, and companies with 50+ percent of public ownership.
In 2024, Alfa-Bank included the municipal housing sector in the list of their top-priority strategic sectors. As explained by Alexander Gorinov, Head of Transaction Products Development and Support at Alfa-Bank, “For a year, we have been smoothly moving towards this goal.” The bank is ready to consider all possible credit options for participants of this market, including working assets credits, investment loans, medium- and long-term credits, and participation in concession agreements, too.