In the Vitebsk region, about 30% of vacant houses were demolished this year at the expense of their owners
In 2019-2020, 3762 vacant and 2263 dilapidated houses were identified in the region. Br658 thousand were spent on dealing with such structures during these years. Over the past three years, almost 1.7 thousand abandoned structures have been demolished in the region, 46 have been sold, and 86 houses have been restored by their owners.
The Chairman of the Regional Council of Deputies explained that work in this direction has been ongoing in the region for over 10 years, and local authorities have experience in dealing with vacant houses, finding their owners, and resolving related issues. "During this time, certain territories have been put in order, and we have quite good preliminary results for this year - 769 houses have already been demolished, with 521 of them funded by the budget, and the rest by the owners. Until recently, Decree No. 357 "On vacant and dilapidated houses" regulated the mechanism for identifying and involving abandoned houses in circulation. Since September 27 this year, Decree No. 116 "On the alienation of residential houses in rural areas and improving work with vacant houses" has come into force, which changes the work in this direction. Now there will be a unified register of vacant houses, rather than separate registers for dilapidated and vacant ones. For the first time, there is an opportunity to sell such houses to the public: either for 1 basic unit (1 BU - Br29) without an auction, or with an auction, starting from 1 basic unit," explained Vladimir Terentyev. He added that the number of properties demolished at the expense of owners who did not intend to use them is increasing every year.
In the Vitebsk region, in 2020, after the demolition of abandoned houses, 172 plots were included in the list of available land plots for further housing construction, and 139 plots were included in the first 9 months of this year. Over almost two years, 83 plots have been transferred to agricultural organizations. As of November 1, there are more than 1.8 thousand vacant houses in the registry.