Housing and Communal Services of Chernihiv: We unite for the sake of reforms

A conference called “Housing and Communal Services of Chernihiv: We unite for the sake of reforms” was held in the Chernihiv City Council with the participation of representatives of the municipal industry of the city, scientists and experts from the public.

Deputy Mayor Mykola Litvinov briefly described the draft program of reforming and development of housing and communal services in Chernihiv for 2010-2014. He focused on the fundamental difference between the project and the previous programs, in particular, in terms of funding and stressed that a number of legislative conflicts have not been settled in the housing and communal services.

The representative of the educational center “Initiative” Volodymyr Andriychenko in his report under the name “Transparent reform of the housing and communal services city of Chernihiv” told about the work of the expert group, which consisted of representatives of leading public organizations of the city. Despite the undeniable urgency of the problem, low community activity was noted.

Maxim Zabashtansky, Associate Professor of the Department of Finance of the Chernihiv State Institute of Economics and Management, informed about the financial support of housing and communal services in modern conditions. According to him, the vast majority of utilities can be considered financially unsecured because they have too limited resources.

Head of the Energy Saving Department of the City Council Economics Department Dmitry Marusich gave examples of cooperation of the Chernihiv City Council with international organizations within the projects “Energy Efficiency in Buildings” (Ukraine-Nimechyna) and “Reform of the City Heat Support” (Ukraine-SSI).

The President of the Polissya Fund of International and Regional Studies Gennady Maxak spoke about the European experience of reforming housing and communal services. In his opinion, the principles of the European community should be guided by which it is customary to rely on the best practices that are already successfully working. Yes, Latvia has a positive experience of maintaining the housing stock, Denmark has considerable experience of energy saving and so on.

The participants of the conference agreed that after the adoption of the state budget it is necessary to refine the draft program of reforming and development of housing and communal services in Chernihiv for 2010-2014 on the principles of openness, publicity, consideration of interests of all stakeholders.

In the near future, this project will be posted on the official web portal of the city council in the section “Urgent questions”.

Source: City Council Public Relations Department