A public council for the management of joint property ownership is planned to be established in the Vitebsk region

January 12, Vitebsk / Sergey Kotovets - BELTA /. A Public Council for the Sustainable Management of Joint Property Complexes is planned to be established for the first time in the Vitebsk region. This was reported to a BELTA correspondent by Andrey Shoretz, Head of the Housing and Communal Services Department of the Regional Executive Committee. At the initial stage, its composition is intended to be formed with the participation of chairpersons of homeowners' associations, housing and construction cooperatives (HCCs), and other developer organizations established in the regional center. The council will also include representatives of the regional Housing and Communal Services Department and the Vitebsk district housing maintenance departments. The main task of the public structure will be training, generalization and dissemination of experience, as well as providing educational and methodological assistance to developer organizations on issues of housing stock management and operation. "Many problems in the work of homeowners' associations are due to the lack of necessary skills, sometimes elementary knowledge, among the chairpersons of such organizations, and the council being created is designed to eliminate this gap," Andrey Shoretz noted. In the future, developer organizations operating in the districts of the region will also be able to join the council's activities. The establishment of the public council will allow for the discussion and adoption of specific decisions on all problems arising in the activities of developer organizations within the framework of current legislation. Thus, the Council is intended to become a kind of platform for dialogue and cooperation between homeowners' associations and housing and communal services organizations in managing the housing stock, Andrey Shoretz noted. This issue was discussed today at the conference "Cooperation for the Development of the Joint Property Management System," held at the Housing and Communal Services Department of the Regional Executive Committee. The event was attended by chairpersons of homeowners' associations of Vitebsk and specialists of the housing and communal services system. The seminar discussed promising directions and areas of interaction between developer organizations and housing and communal services enterprises, as well as issues of legal support for the activities of homeowners' associations. The conference was organized by the regional Housing and Communal Services Department and the association of homeowners' associations "Vitebsk Alternative" with the assistance of the Program for the Support of Belarus of the Federal Government of Germany. According to the Housing and Communal Services Department of the Regional Executive Committee, as of December 2009, 749 developer organizations were registered in the region, including 607 HCCs 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-