There are plans to build 1.6 million square meters of stand-alone houses in Belarus in 2020, Yekaterina Usenkova, the head of the housing construction department of the housing policy office at the Architecture and Construction Ministry of Belarus, told reporters on 17 September, BelTA has learned.
“Detached houses are quite popular in the country, many apply for loans specifically to buy such houses. This year 4 million square meters of housing is planned to be commissioned in Belarus, of which 40%, or 1.6 million square meters, will be single-family houses,” Yekaterina Usenkova said.
According to her, the country is working on comprehensive development of detached housing construction. “Large land plots are to be used for this purpose. In other words, developers will build residential complexes consisting of detached houses and then sell them when the construction is finished. We believe that residential buildings will be commissioned with the necessary social infrastructure, kindergartens and schools. Detached housing construction should be approached comprehensively. This year there are plans to commission 10,000 square meters of detached housing built this way,” Yekaterina Usenkova explained.
Detached housing is most in demand in Minsk Oblast, Brest Oblast and Grodno Oblast. This year Minsk Oblast is to build 700,000 square meters of detached housing, Brest Oblast 300,000 square meters, Grodno Oblast 176,000 square meters. “The demand for detached housing in other regions is also robust, but not as big as in the above-mentioned regions,” she added.
Speaking about plans for 2021, Yekaterina Usenkova said that the volume of detached housing construction will not shrink. “We suggest that the regions build about 1.8 million square meters of single-family housing next year, this will also include infrastructure. We also consider increasing the target for commissioned housing (4.1 million square meters), but these targets have to be approved by the government. Now this issue is scrutinized by the executive committees. We will certainly take their opinion on board, but it is too early to say which targets the government will approve in the end,” she said.
More than 1.77 million square meters of detached housing was commissioned in Belarus in 2019, including almost 324,000 square meters in Brest Oblast, more than 118,000 square meters in Vitebsk Oblast, more than 205,000 square meters in Gomel Oblast, over 165,000 square meters in Grodno Oblast, almost 790,000 square meters in Minsk Oblast and more than 131,000 square meters in Mogilev Oblast. Over 37,000 square meters of stand-alone housing was built in the capital city in 2019.