To give and forget: where do the billions collected for the housing overhauls go
Lyudmila Butuzova
SAVE THE DROWNERS!
The big "surprise" is now being sorted out by the residents of the house 14/18 on the street. Bolshaya Zelenina in St. Petersburg. Six months ago, they began to block the roof, but before the autumn bad weather, only half of them were blocked in half. Residents in distress send SOS signals to all authorities.
“We're drowning naturally”, the deputy chairman told Novye Izvestia. council of the house Mikhail Plotnikov. - As soon as it rains, we have a flood from the seventh to the first floor, 10 out of 104 apartments are already ruined. We go to bed under umbrellas, pour water out of cans and buckets every half hour.
According to Mikhail, the old roof, although it was breathing on its own, did not cause such trouble. The residents extended her life as best they could - they themselves cleaned it of snow, without these crowbars and picks, which migrant workers love so much, and the holes were repaired conscientiously so that it would not drip. Not to say that the house on Bolshaya Zelenina was the first to be overhauled, but in some lists the FKR, apparently, was listed and in the midst of the coronavirus epidemic caught my eye.
“They came to us unexpectedly, on April 15”, - says Mikhail. - Almost all the construction sites in St. Petersburg were standing, but as an exception, the Fund decided to replace the roof before the beginning of September. For some reason, there was no estimate, no discussion of the repair with the residents ... The workers just came and began to tear off the roof. The council of the house got worried, they began to find out who they were, why without documents. Comrades almost do not understand Russian ... In the overhaul fund, where we turned, we were also scolded: they say, they tried for you, and you are here with complaints. They were redirected to the contractor - to the LLC ALEV STROY of their choice. From there they played to the subcontractor - also LLC, but with a different name - "Prometheus". The subcontractor vouched for the workers, who supposedly themselves know what and how to do. It was not possible to find out where these "masters" were recruited. This is how we rush about for six months and only manage to dodge the beams that fly from above when the workers are sitting on the roof, and arrange the basins in the apartments when they are not there for weeks.
THE CHILD IS FOLLOWED BY FALSE EYES
In short, deputy chairman. council at home (by the way, a student of one of the St. Petersburg universities) Mikhail Plotnikov very much doubted the effectiveness of the regional fund and accusatory writes to us in the editorial office - “We consider this behavior in relation to the inhabitants of the house is not permissible, and the attitude towards work is negligent and irresponsible". It is unlikely that Mikhail will be comforted by such an answer, but experienced people who have already been in the arms of the Overhaul fund (FKR) leave such reviews on social networks in many cases.
Sergey Sagalovich: Some kind of funny approach! As if FKR was created to provide high-quality overhaul. Is it still not clear that this office was created only to fool the apartment owners?
It is interesting that the Ministry of Construction made practically the same conclusions, inundated with complaints about regional FKRs, some of them were publicly harassed by the deputies. Minister Andrei Chibis for unexpected disappearances of contractors from facilities and abandoned houses in a deplorable state, for endless courts in which residents are forced to seek approval of repair plans from the Overhaul fund (FKR); and workers pay salaries.
The General Prosecutor's Office and the Accounts Chamber of the Russian Federation have checked the Funds twice in the past two years (on behalf of the President of the Russian Federation). Most of them have been labeled a failure. Numerous facts of inappropriate spending of funds of the Overhaul fund (FKR) and more than 9 thousand other violations were noted. As a result of the checks, 62 criminal cases were initiated. Most of them ended as usual - personnel reshuffles and purely symbolic punishments.
That is, they look after the naughty brainchild from above, as it were, but half an eye. The state is in no hurry to revise the approaches to the existing system of financing and repairing housing, despite the obvious mistakes of the system and the ongoing disputes about the legality of introducing fees for overhaul. On the contrary, everything goes to the fact that the “re-education” of the structure will finally be left to the population, and the Russians will also have to pay for this process with their own nerves and out of their own pockets.
In 2019, according to official data, more than 37 thousand apartment buildings were repaired in the amount of 146 billion rubles. And when the amendments to the Housing Code were adopted in 2012, it was announced that in 2020 repairs would be needed for 1.7 billion square meters. housing, which will require 5 trillion rubles. And this is without taking into account the prices for building materials that have increased over eight years. Thus, there is a huge gap between the total contributions for 2019 and the estimated required amount for 2020. It can be overcome without reducing the volume of repairs only by increasing the amount of taxes levied on citizens. Actually, this was done on January 1 of this year.
COPY FOR THE GOLDEN DOMES
The minimum contribution for a major overhaul in 2020 in Moscow is 18.86 rubles per square meter (last year it was 18.19 rubles).
A new minimum was also set in Kolyma - was 9 rubles. per sq. m, it became 9.9 rubles. The condition of the housing stock, as reported by local residents, is such that not a single house will survive to overhaul, even if it happens in the very near future. The meaning of the extortion is unclear, except perhaps to prolong the existence of the Kyrgyz Republic fund in Magadan.
In Yakutia, since 2020, residents of wooden, obsolete barracks have been paying 5.61 rubles. for 1 sq. m per month, in stone houses without lifts - 7.91 rubles., with lifts - 10.50 rubles. (increase in all items by more than a ruble from last year). Residents of Primorye for major repairs of apartment buildings from January 1 pay 8 rubles. from sq. m. (it was 7.73 rubles) In the Tomsk region, the payment increased by 5%. (7.46 rubles per square meter). .In Kaliningrad, the quitrent was raised by the ruble. In Udmurtia - by one and a half rubles or 19.2% - for residents of houses with an elevator and by 19.4% - for houses without an elevator.
In the Tula region, the amount of contributions for overhaul has not changed for three years. At the same time, the region ranks 2nd in the Russian Federation in terms of program implementation. Continuing success will cost residents a contribution indexed by the country's inflation. In the Middle Urals, the minimum contribution also increased within the predicted inflation index - 3.8%, and actually grew to ten rubles per square meter. This, according to the government of the Sverdlovsk region, will allow the region to carry out all the planned work on time.
It seems that the rent for the residents has not increased much - from kopecks to rubles .. But put grain by grain and calculate how much each of you will pay for the overhaul of your house and what you can ultimately count on. Muscovite Yevgeny Terentyev shared his calculations on a page on social networks. We read, enjoy.
“I paid 1147 rubles for the overhaul of the house. I looked at the website of the Moscow Government, my house will be renovated in 2033 (18 years after the start of the program). The total area of the house, according to the same website, is 56778 sq. m. And now my favorite. We consider:
For 18 years I will pay: 1147 rubles * 12 months * 18 years = 247'752 rubles.
For 18 years my whole house will pay 153'300'600 rubles.
I thought we would just have the pipes and the roof repaired (as they say on their website), but judging by the amount of repairs, already in 2033 my house will have golden domes, at least two helipads, armored windows, high-speed elevators, Kevlar walls, etc. Platinum-plated handrail, well, purely for beauty. I express my sincere gratitude to everyone who invented or has at least something to do with the authorship of this wonderful, timely and such a generous social program. Low bow to you, "Terentyev summed up his calculations.
DO NOT WANT TO - BUT, YES, YOU'll STEAL
According to the Ministry of Construction, the national average collection rate is 92%. Every year, Russians transfer up to 150 billion rubles for overhaul (in the first six months of this year alone, 83 billion rubles were collected, despite the covid and the reduction in wages for a third of able-bodied citizens). Experts of the public movement Housing Solidarity have calculated: if the funds collected from residents were not spent at all, then in 6-8 years a typical socket could easily save up for the construction of a new house and not bother with repairing the old one.
- Can you imagine what billions have passed through the hands of officials for several years now and are spent almost uncontrollably? - Natalia Pshenichnaya, a leading expert on housing policy of the interregional Anti-Corruption Center, shared with NI. - Observing this picture, I can say: no matter how carefully the residents of apartment buildings pay their fees, they will wait for the “golden domes on the roof”. But those who came up with this whole scheme with a major overhaul, it has long been golden. Many experts, including myself, support the deputies of "Fair Russia" and the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, proposing to "freeze" extortions from the population, at least until the mechanisms of control over the activities of the Overhaul fund (FKR) and the spending of funds from the population are debugged. Here is the simplest question, to which it is impossible to get an answer: they collect from everyone and send them “to the common piggy bank”, and who gets interest on this money? After all, they do not lie "without movement for years" - right? Or they still lie, considering that 51,740 houses are planned to be repaired this year in the country, plus another 10,750 houses that have not been repaired from previous years, and as of July 1, a total of just over 10,000 houses were repaired. Where to rush, if the principle works for officials: a month has passed - money from citizens has dropped into the fund? As one citizen wrote on social networks: the scheme is such that it directly yells "Steal me!"
People need to give some intelligible explanations why there are now two lines in the receipts for housing and communal services - current and major repairs, which practically coincide in amounts. But there is no such explanation, just as there is no explanation why the compulsory contribution for overhaul, falling into the accounts of the Overhaul fund (FKR), according to its charter, is called a DONATION.
According to the laws of the Russian Federation, a foundation is an NGO, I quote: "...a non-profit organization without membership, established by citizens and (or) legal entities on the basis of voluntary property contributions, pursuing social, charitable, cultural, educational or other socially useful goals". Overhaul fund (FKR) - a voluntary non-profit organization? But then explain why defaulters are persecuted by bailiffs, why they are assigned huge fines and late fees, and the foundations have no contracts with their "donors". In some regions, in order to get around this annoying oversight, they did the following: on the back of the receipt for housing and communal services, they printed the text of the contract with the FKR in beaded font, which said that the contract was automatically concluded if a person pays the first receipt. But that's not all.
Since the fund has been declared “non-state”, it, like all non-profit organizations, is not subject to the law on public procurement. What does it mean? Reg-funds conduct tenders for the selection of contractors according to their own rules, guided by their own internal instructions. So, how they look for contractors, what kickbacks they take for profitable properties and opaque estimates, no one knows. The sequence of houses for overhaul in most regions is also very conditional.
The survey of the housing stock has practically never been carried out, which means that there is no clear idea of which houses are in dire need of repair, and which ones to save and save for. It is enough for the fund manager to move his fingers a little in order to include one house in the renovation plan immediately, another later, the third even later, and, accordingly, influence the competition of contractors.
On my own behalf, I will add: the relatively low salaries of the FCR leaders stimulate this “grasping” process. Although the language does not dare to call the salary in the Overhaul fund (FKR) "low". Formally, there is a ban on the use of "donations" of the population for the salaries of employees of regional funds. In part, it is observed, the salaries of the FKR are appointed by the regional authorities, they, as founders, are responsible for the activities of their funds. According to our data, the remuneration for the work of the PKR is everywhere at the highest level. When we pointed out this imbalance to the Ministry of Construction, we received the following answer from them: “Do you want people who spend billions to receive salaries at the level of the regional average? We won't find such volunteers for 30 thousand a month".
That is, corruption and nepotism as a norm were laid even at the stage of amendments to the Housing Code and the formation of the FCR. Human rights activists reached the Supreme Court, proving dubious legal grounds for introducing the very institution of overhaul in Russia. Initially, we were actively supported by the Prosecutor General's Office, but at the final stage their objections were withdrawn. As a result, we now have what we have.
CAPITULATION WITHOUT FIGHT
The key point among "what we have" is that there are no criteria for calculating the amount of the overhaul fee. Novye Izvestia was told about this in the board of trustees of the non-profit partnership Housing and Communal Services Control - "Everything is at the will of local organizations and in the interests of their own FKR". Moreover, even the rates for overhaul in the same region may differ: somewhere they differ depending on the age of the houses, somewhere - depending on the type of building materials, etc. The most "intricate" tariffs are currently in operation in Ulan-Ude: the city authorities invented several dozen of them. Officials in Samara turned out to be no less inventors - there were more than 40 different tariffs - they even took a shred of wool from people living in construction trailers.
Meanwhile, according to expert estimates, up to 30% of the total housing stock in the country is owned by municipalities, and it is the municipalities that are currently the main debtors for overhaul.
How so? Quite recently, you have coped with the repair of a huge mass of housing, and now you don't even have enough to pay for a contribution to the Overhaul fund (FKR)? One of the authors of the amendments to the Housing Code, State Duma deputy Pavel Kachkayev, criticizing the implementation of the overhaul program, cited the following figures:
“From 2008 to 2013, we have gained a good pace in the overhaul of housing - 70 million square meters per year. And by the end of 2014, this figure was 34 million square meters - that is, half as much! "This "unforgivable fall", in his opinion, is due to confusion in the legislation and the hasty departure of the state "from the battlefield".
What a fight here! Surrender. In 2012, the state admitted that it was no longer able to bear the burden of home renovations. If before that there were various schemes of double or triple co-financing, when the lion's share of expenses fell on the federal budget, then with the adoption of amendments to the Housing Code, the honorable right to repair their houses was assigned to residents, and the state is gradually reducing its burdensome obligations for this matter to zero. Moreover, even in such complex cities in terms of overhaul as Petersburg.
There are many historic buildings in the center that require renovation of particular complexity at high prices, and the housing stock is badly worn out. Aleksey Kovalyov, a deputy of the St. Petersburg Legislative Assembly, is sure that the poor condition of houses in the Northern capital is a headache not only and not so much for Petersburgers. “This is not the fault of the citizens who carelessly maintained their homes. Even in the USSR, the maintenance of buildings was not given due attention, and therefore they fell into such disrepair. It is unacceptable to impose on the citizens of St. Petersburg this underrepair, which has accumulated for decades”, - the parliamentarian believes.
At a round table in Rosbalt agency, representatives of Smolny and the regional operator rejected this thesis. “Residents should consider not only an apartment, but also an apartment building as their property. They own everything: the roof, basements, elevators. And you have to pay for it. It seems that now people do not understand this, ”complained the first deputy chairman of the Housing Committee Sergey Sharlaev.
Well, why, people feel within their own pocket that the city is also the owner of a considerable number of residential buildings, slowly shifting its responsibility for their maintenance to everyone. For example, last year Smolny allocated 4.3 billion rubles for overhaul, and 4.7 billion rubles were collected from residents. In 2020, the proportion has changed: only 3 billion rubles will be spent from the city treasury for house repairs, while 10 billion rubles are planned to be collected from the owners. Contributions to the FCR of St. Petersburg have already "jumped" - from four or five rubles to eight or nine. It is not hard to guess that the blow to the wallet of Petersburgers is sensitive: instead of 120 rubles a month you will have to pay 240 for a standard apartment in Khrushchev, and 810 instead of 450 for a three-ruble note in the old fund.
At the round table, they also named other interesting figures: since 2014, Petersburgers have raised 18 billion for overhaul. The total cost of the program until 2038 is more than 700 billion rubles. The question is where to get the money? - in Smolny, it seems, has already been decided. "Contributions for major repairs in St. Petersburg will increase every year", - said the prospects of the assistant to the governor Vladislav Voronkov.
Let us allow ourselves to insert a hairpin: if the contributions are also assimilated, as is happening now on the drowning house on the street Bolshaya Zelenina, then it would be better to cancel them altogether - St. Petersburg real estate may be more intact. If only because people, independently and at their own expense, will take care of it, and not “carry out a regional overhaul program” under the gun of the authorities.
CIVIL ACTIVITY MATURES IN BASES
The idea of opening a special account and renovating your house on your own is the most attractive and logical one. But in Moscow it was sold by only 1.5% of owners, and in Russia at all by 1%. The Ministry of Construction seems to have made a special effort to ensure that the overwhelming majority of Russians save money for repairs in regional funds, and not in the special accounts of their houses.
- The procedure for switching to a special account is very difficult, - confirms the lawyer Lyubov Gavryushina from NP ZhKKH Control. - We need a decision of the general meeting of owners and an incredible number of votes "for". But what is interesting: if residents now collect the necessary votes and decide to save money on a special account, the funds already paid to the fund will not be returned to them. But if those who have saved up contributions on a special account decide to go to the fund, then the money from the special account will have to be paid. At the same time, many residents, having already evaluated the quality of this very repair, today are trying with all their might to avoid it. Well, or make it less destructive or even quite good quality, if the house has a strong asset and support of the deputies.
In Moscow, over the years of the fight against FKR, a large detachment of volunteers has formed, who not only see the vicious system from the inside, but also learned how to protect residents from a natural disaster, resist hack-work and embezzlement at all stages of overhaul.
“We must pay tribute to the foundation itself,” says Olga Mostinskaya, the municipal deputy of the Filevsky Park district . - Since 2015, he has managed a lot in Moscow. He successfully fights against the atomization of the townspeople, uniting the once unfamiliar neighbors into close-knit and friendly detachments of resistance. Thanks to his activities, thousands of humanitarians received a basic construction education and can list the layers of the pie under the blind area without a cheat sheet, they know the standard distance of radiators in MOPs from the walls and floor, the step of installing the supports of the highways, they distinguish the Mauerlat from the valley. The Foundation instilled in many a love of theater. After all, the Overhaul fund (FKR) is also an entreprise, and the best performances I have personally seen have been played over the past three years at the commissions for accepting completed works.
Part of the problem, Mstinskaya said, is that FKR is unable to chew on the piece it has swung, and the market does not have the required number of qualified contractors. Supervision engineers maintain 30-40 (and more) houses in different areas. They do not check any technical conclusion or projects, do not monitor compliance with formal procedures. The Fund's working group, which makes all operational decisions (termination, replay, increase in the marginal cost), can consider the issue for a year and a half. There is no system for evaluating and ranking contractors. There is no prohibition on subcontracting, tenders are won by firms with two employees, non-core specialization, subcontracting of the third and even the fourth level most often works on houses. These people have not seen the project in their eyes, they receive a penny, live in basements and do not even have basic qualifications. During the season, it happens that contractors are looking for welders or locksmiths for weeks across the country. Design is usually outsourced, so after the project is accepted, you will never see this designer again. I almost forgot - counterintuitively, but the Moscow State Expertise does not check the compliance of the project with the house. Doesn't go to the place at all - conducts "desk research". Therefore, the project may not match the height of the house or the number of entrances.
In this sad reality, a significant part of the deputy's life passes. But despite all the hopelessness, the communal rights of Muscovites can be protected if the public of each particular house is ready to climb the basements for six hours, checking the work done with the estimate, stand to death and not sign acts until the contractor fixes all the jambs. Do not be fooled by crocodile tears that the contractor will starve to death for the whole family, if the tenants do not agree to sign the act in exchange for a letter of guarantee someday to finish the unfinished one.
Not everyone has enough character and willpower.
- We have one house that fell into a trap at all speeds, we signed an acceptance certificate, succumbing to persuasion. In another house, residents stood firm: no concessions, carry out all the formalities, ” Sergey Petrikov, a public controller from Chertanovo, told Novye Izvestia. - Those who signed it have been living in destroyed porches for a year already, the workers removed the tiles, stripped the walls and washed away. And the steadfast - all the rank of the plane.
Moscow City Duma deputy Lyubov Nikitina added color to the story from her own experience: “Work in the houses that have come under the control of the deputies is proceeding according to the protocol, without fools and with the involvement of owners as controllers. We check everything, fix everything, publish it in the FB - this is a document, by the way. And all contractors and those who are accustomed to sawing during overhaul should know this. They decided to part with one contractor in Severny Chertanovo and shake back the money he had already received. How would you like? Take money - do well. We ourselves can be bad, but we don't want to. We live here.
It seems, and indeed, thanks to the overhaul fund, civic activism in Moscow is growing right before our eyes and is about to raise even the dead. It would not hurt my own home - we have less and less active contingent in Ryazanka, mostly residents deep over 70, or even over 85+. I can't imagine how they will control the budget and fight the contractor for the basements. District deputies of the same puberty, and the Moscow City Duma is sitting by Elena Nikolaeva, who, once being a State Duma deputy and a major figure in the All-Russian Popular Front, pushed the idea of creating a FKR to the masses and donations to the "mutual assistance fund" for the capes of our houses. That's just for this and all the hope that if a major overhaul happened in our house, Nikolaeva herself will lead the elderly fighters to fight against her own brainchild. But in order not to scare the deputy to death, the overhaul in the houses on Ryazanka will begin no earlier than 2036. By that time, half of the houses will be demolished, or even all, judging by the activity with which our deputy from all the stands is now drowning for renovation.