Measures to ensure the construction of 111 million square meters of housing within 7 years were considered at a meeting of the Republican headquarters for the implementation of the pre-election program of the Head of State, chaired by Prime Minister Alikhan Smailov.

The Minister of Industry and Infrastructural Development Marat Karabayev reported that in the coming years it is planned to provide new housing to more than 1 million families. In order to achieve this goal, an annual increase of 200,000 sq.m. of housing is planned to be commissioned in the country by the end of 2029. In particular, 15.3 million square metres or over 143,000 apartments are to be commissioned this year.

The akimats approved the road maps with indication of specific objects and deadlines for their implementation in due time. The Ministry, in turn, conducts monthly monitoring of each new facility. According to the results of 4 months, the republican target has been exceeded by 19%: 4.3 mln sq m were built against a plan of 3.6 mln sq m - 36.6 thousand apartments.

In addition, today there are 44 problematic objects with shared ownership in the republic. In order to regulate the issues of shared ownership construction, the Ministry had prepared a package of stimulating and tightening amendments.

The main stimulating measures will simplify the requirements to the developers. This will allow construction companies to legalize their activities by obtaining a guarantee of the Kazakhstan Housing Company and the permission of the akimats.

Tougher measures are aimed at formation of transparent mechanism of attracting shareholders' money. Among them: registration of all contracts relating to the purchase of housing under construction in the Population Service Centers, increasing of penalties for illegal attraction of shareholders' money with the further suspension of construction, prohibition of advertising without the permission for attracting of shareholders' money, etc.

The reports were also made by the Chairman of the Board of JSC Baiterek Kanat Sharlapayev, the Akim of Abay region Nurlan Urankhayev, First Deputy Akim of Mangystau region Zhumabay Karagaev and Deputy Akim of Turkestan region Nuralkhan Kusherov.

The Prime Minister stressed that the Head of State set a goal to commission 111 million square meters of new housing by 2029. In particular, last year more than 130 thousand families were able to improve their living conditions.

"Here we can point out the positive examples in Astana, Almaty and the Almaty region, where the plans for commissioning housing were overfulfilled. At the same time, the plans were not fulfilled in the Ulytau, Northern Kazakhstan, and Atyrau Regions," Alikhan Smailov pointed out.

He noted that Abay, Ulytau and Mangystau regions are behind the plan for 4 months of this year.

"The issue of providing housing, especially to vulnerable groups of the population, is of great social importance. This issue is most acutely felt in large cities. Currently, more than 600,000 people are registered as needing housing from the state housing fund. This issue must be addressed systematically and in stages. To do this we have a number of directions within the framework of the Concept of development of housing and communal infrastructure," Prime Minister said.

Head of the Government pointed out that one of the most important problems here is the lack of engineering infrastructure.

"The capital has now encountered this problem. In Astana there is a shortage of energy resources, there is an issue of water supply. Because of this the planned volume of commissioning of housing was reduced. In order to avoid such situations all the akimats need to conduct an appropriate analysis of the prospective development of their settlements," Alikhan Smailov noted.

He stressed that planning problems are often revealed when housing is commissioned, that is why it is necessary to solve the infrastructure issues at the stage of land allocation and issuing a construction permit.

Alikhan Smailov also added that recently there have been a lot of complaints from the population about the quality of the construction work, violation of urban development plans and untimely commissioning of facilities.

"For example, the owners of apartments in the "Budapest" housing complex in Astana faced a lack of heat supply before the beginning of the winter period last year. In Shymkent, an apartment building built only five years ago under the state program is already covered with deep cracks, and the elevators are constantly not working. In Almaty, over 150 facts of violations of law were revealed in the development of mountainous areas, along water reservoirs and in specially protected areas," the Prime Minister said. 

According to him, a common problem is the lack of permits during construction. For example, the Tolebi Residence residential complex under construction in Almaty has no relevant documents for construction.

"In Astana alone, about 90 residential complexes are now being built without the necessary package of documents. As you know, the court made a decision to demolish the Dublin housing estate which was almost ready to be built without any permits," Alikhan Smailov said.

As the head of the Government said, it is also necessary to learn from the experience of the devastating earthquake in Turkey.

"The issue of tightening measures of construction control has been raised repeatedly, especially in seismically active areas. Certain measures have been taken, but they are not enough. All these issues should be taken into account in the framework of the Building Code being developed," Alikhan Smailov said. 

In conclusion, he pointed out the need to ensure full and timely implementation of all plans for the commissioning of housing and engineering infrastructure provided for this year, as well as to take into account the above-mentioned shortcomings in the work. In addition, Prime Minister instructed to take measures within a month to launch a mechanism of financing an integrated development with the allocation of housing for persons in waiting lists and to update the list of persons in waiting lists to meet the established requirements by September 1.

#Alikhan Smailov #The Prime Minister of the Republic of Kazakhstan #Construction