A Public Council for the Development of the Joint Ownership System has been established in the Vitebsk region

March 2, Vitebsk / Sergey Kotovets - BELTA /. A public council for promoting the development of the joint property management system has been established in the Vitebsk region, the regional executive committee's housing and communal services department informed a BELTA correspondent. The public council, which will operate under the regional housing and communal services department, includes representatives of regional, city, and district housing and communal services enterprises and heads of homeowners' associations established in the regional center. In the future, developer organizations operating in the region's districts will also be able to join the public structure. The council is intended to become a tool for improving the efficiency of joint property management and introducing new management mechanisms, as well as to contribute to achieving high quality of utility services and ensure public participation in solving housing and communal services problems. The main tasks of the public structure will be to develop proposals on current issues of the region's housing and communal services development and on improving housing and communal services for the population. In addition, the council will summarize and analyze public opinion on housing and communal services issues, as well as study problems and prepare proposals for their solution. Thus, the council will contribute to the development of citizens' initiatives in solving housing and communal issues and increase the transparency of the housing and communal services reform process, the department noted. The council's decisions will be advisory in nature. To perform its functions, the council has the right to make proposals to improve the efficiency of the region's housing and communal services management, energy and resource conservation, the quality of services to the population, and the improvement of adjacent territories, as well as to initiate meetings and round tables on current issues of housing and communal services development. The council intends to study and summarize the experience of organizations and associations in the housing and communal services sector and to conduct public expertise of regulatory legal acts in the housing and communal services sector of local self-government bodies. The chairman of the board of the public council is the head of the regional executive committee's housing and communal services department, and the board also includes the heads of 13 homeowners' associations in Vitebsk. According to the regional executive committee's housing and communal services department, as of the beginning of 2010, 749 developer organizations were registered in the region, including 607 housing construction cooperatives and 142 homeowners' associations. Of these, about 25% are serviced independently, while the remaining organizations have concluded service agreements with housing and communal services enterprises. About half of the developer organizations registered in the region were established in the regional center. -0-