Daugavpils municipality has joined the private-public partnership programme “Rental Housing for Latvian Professionals” Latvian Radio reports on 16 April.
The programme aims to provide modern, energy-efficient and affordable apartments for young professionals and their families in sectors that are important for the Latvian state and municipalities, such as medical professionals, teachers, firefighters and police officers. According to State Real Estate (VNĪ), a total of nine municipalities have been selected for the preparation of the first round of estimates, which should be available by the end of the summer.
The new housing programme should become a magnet of sorts, attracting or retaining the specialists needed in the regions – medical workers, teachers, engineers or rescue workers. Many municipalities in Latvia have expressed interest in the programme. Renārs Griškevičs, Chairman of the Board of VNĪ, told Latvian Radio that the first ones have just been identified after a serious assessment,
“Quite intensive work was done with our partners – the European Investment Bank (EIB) and their associated consultants, assessing the land plots and requests for residential construction submitted by all municipalities. So far, nine high-readiness municipalities have been selected, where the plots were without problems, with ready infrastructure. The one from the Latgale region is Daugavpils, with a total demand of 120 apartments for construction,” said Griškevičs.
Just over 10 years ago, Daugavpils City Council received a nine-storey apartment block from a private company as a gift. The municipality renovated it with its own funds. Part of the block was earmarked for municipal use, and part was auctioned. The flats are in demand, said Aleksejs Nikolajevs, Head of the Real Estate Department of the Property Management Department of Daugavpils City Council.
“There are 105 flats, the building itself consists of three sections – A, B and C, each with 35 flats. Section A was intended for professionals, and today this whole section is occupied. A lot of them are doctors, teachers, athletes, urban planners. We feel that the demand is high; we hope that with the new project, everything will work out,” said Nikolajevs.
On average there are always around 100 people on the waiting list for municipal flats in Daugavpils. Even if the municipality has several thousand apartments, they are not in a condition to offer.
This explains the existence of a waiting list for apartments. The housing stock in Daugavpils is in need of renewal, as the existing stock is seriously outdated, said Nataļja Rustkova, board member of the Daugavpils Apartment and Communal Economy Company. “Of course, the housing stock is very outdated, there are no new houses. We are trying to restore, renovate houses, repair them in some way, but it doesn’t help. There are not enough new houses.”
“Daugavpils has also been one of the slowest to implement energy efficiency projects in housing in the country. So it is obvious that we do not have new, modern, energy-efficient apartments in Daugavpils,” said Daina Kriviņa, head of the council’s Development Department.
The new housing programme will therefore be both a new experience and an opportunity for Daugavpils, she said.
However, a final decision on the construction of the new housing will have to be taken once the financial details are clarified, Griškevičs said.
In total, the first procurement lot concerns nine Latvian municipalities, where it is planned to build around 1000 new apartments. If all goes well, the programme will be continued to cover the entire territory of Latvia.
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