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News & Events
28 October 2021
Annual Conference
IVIM's Annual Conference in Minsk was dedicated to citizen involvement in building refurbishment actions
For the 12th time, IVIM summarises the year and looks at central topics
For the 12th time, the annual conference of the Annual Conference of the International Property Management Association (IVIM) was held in Minsk. The programme on October 28 looked at housing management in Belarus with a focus on "Instruments of residents' participation in energy modernization of apartment buildings and digitalization". Representatives of management companies, associations of apartment owners' associations, ministries and educational institutions from Belarus, Germany, Estonia, Latvia, Kazakhstan, Russia, Ukraine and Uzbekistan took part.
The agenda included proposals for legislative changes in the support programme for energy refurbishment of apartment buildings in Belarus and the role of the housing manager, an optimal model of formation of an apartment owners' association taking into account the management and life cycle of the building.
In Belarus, the Presidential Decree of 4 September 2019, created the basic conditions of support for energy-efficient refurbushment of apartment buildings. The state pays one hundred percent of the refurbishment costs in advance, of which 50 percent is paid as a grant, and apartment owners refinance fifty percent over a ten-year period. To date, 2,337 homeowners' meetings have discussed participation in the subsidy programme, only 30 decided to apply, though, and three renovation projects have been completed. The conferees analyzed the reasons for this.
IVIM's chairman of the board, Werner Merkel, recommended that the need for redevelopment should be examined, especially in the old stock. Drivers of the refurbishment are the homeowners as decision makers as well as housing managers and energy consultants. The latter accompany the refurbishment project through all phases of the project. The energy consultant knows the current state of the art, legal regulations, has experience with the processes and barriers on the construction site. He determines the effort, analyses the costs and the benefits through savings. The housing manager plays a key role. He is the preparer, controller and neutral companion. He informs the homeowners and brings about decisions on scope, costs, involved experts and construction companies. He is expected to have basic competencies through adequate training. He does not have to have specific renovation knowledge, but must coordinate and manage the individual disciplines. External experts are brought in for technical and organizational solutions.
Wassil Liman, Chairman of the Association of Administrators from Kiev, reported in his contribution that owners are taking a wait-and-see attitude despite the "Tyoplye kredity" and "Energodom" subsidy programmes. The professionals involved also need to be motivated. For this reason, additional financing for the energy consultants was provided for the organisation of the homeowners' meetings, but this did not cover the costs over the planned period of three months and did not lead to any changes.
IVIM's Executive Director Gennady Kalyonov reported that the Belarusian municipal management companies, responsible for the management of about three quarters of the apartment buildings, do not receive any additional financing for the organisation of homeowners' meetings. However, it is also not certain that the financing of more thorough preparation of the meetings alone will result in more applications for subsidies for energy-efficient refurbishment. Housing managers equipped with the necessary knowledge and adequately remunerated for his/her professional work is needed but not yet available on the market. In this context, Kalyonov highlighted the necessity of the transition from self-management to professional condominium management. IVIM proposes to establish a national system for training of housing managers in Belarus. Evaluating the experience of Germany, Latvia, Estonia, etc., he has worked out a plan for the training of condominium managers. It is planned to last three years for ninth grade school leavers and one year for eleventh grade school leavers. Furthermore, one-year further training courses and qualifications are to be offered. A higher education programme for housing managers is also being considered.
Olga Paschuk, project manager of the IT company "Bright Solutions" from Minsk, proposed to develop a system for conducting electronic surveys and polls. With its help, it will be possible to request the convening of homeowners' meetings and the agenda, and archive minutes. The information or links can also be duplicated by telephone and thus reach all owners.
Juris Vidžis, board member of the Latvian Association of Property Managers, supported this approach and reported that in Latvia such a system has already been successfully applied for ten years and is now used by two thirds of the homeowners.
Bernhard Schwarz, IWO project director, presented the future brochure "Energy-efficient refurbishment" for Belarus. which is being prepared by the German Energy Agency (dena) in cooperation with IWO and IVIM. It is intended to contribute to the training of municipal management companies' staff responsible for the implementation of the said support programme. The aim is to achieve resolutions on application for funding at homeowners' meetings. Contents are the necessity of the energy-efficient building refurbishment, models and basic conditions of funding, structural measures and not least techniques for successfully communicating with the homeowners.
Alexander Sidorenko, General Director of the "Institute for the Development of the Construction Industry" from Moscow pleaded for a holistic approach to energy-efficient refurbishment and maintenance of residential buildings. Only in this way can the community of apartment owners be enabled to sustainably manage their apartment building.
The necessity for holistic refurbishment and maintenance was supported by Prof. Dr. Wsewolod Nikolajew from Kiev. According to him, failure to do so has caused a refurbishment backlog of around 200 million m² of living space in Ukraine so far. The refurbishment costs would amount to about one third of the state budget. The subsidy programmes for energy-efficient refurbishment are not effective, since it is not possible to finance the refurbishment at the same time. Ergo, the first thing to be aimed at and promoted should be the preservation of existing buildings.
Rakhima Ortikova, Executive Director of the Association of Professional Managers and Service Providers in the Housing Stock of Uzbekistan, spoke about the importance of professionalism among housing managers. In 2019, the "Law on Management of Apartment Buildings" was adopted in Uzbekistan, which lays the foundations for professional management. The main advantages of appointing a housing manager are the legal regulation of his responsibility to the homeowners, the provision of trained personnel, the presence of working capital and share capital as collateral to the owners and creditworthiness. The risks lie in the drive for profit through excessive management costs, lack of possibilities for the homeowners to control the provided services, as well as difficulties in the procedure of terminating the housing manager's contract.
The detailed conference report in Russian was published on IVIM's website (see link in the right column).
For further information please contact Bernhard Schwarz | schwarz@iwoev.org | +49 30 2067 9802.