Public housing program taking applicants

  • 2009-08-26
  • By Ella Karapetyan

CONCRETE JUNGLE: Tallinn continues with an aggressive municipal housing plan.

TALLINN - Tallinn City Council has completed the first house building development program, where 3,800 needy tenants applied for social support for receiving municipal housing, though there were still 1,200 such tenants who didn't receive accommodations, but who instead received grants totaling from 10,000 kroons (640 euros) to 75,000 kroons.
The city council has also confirmed the completion of the second stage of the home building plan, on August 19, which offered flats at reduced prices as a social support mechanism for young families or specialists.

The principles of the second stage of the program have already been confirmed. To run the program, the council has allocated 100 apartments in the residential area of Raadiku, where the rent for the flats, set by the council, will be 30 kroons per square meter.

According to the council, detailed information will be available from August 24. Flats are available for those who are interested, and who successfully pass through an application procedure.
The first 100 flats are to be two- to four-roomed apartments in a block of flats, with living space from 47.8 m2 to 83 m2, and are now under construction. The housing is available only for registered residents, who work in the following professions: school teachers, social workers, nurses, policemen, life-guards, emergency rescue personnel, including professionals working in museums, libraries, theaters and other such venues.

In the framework of the first housing program, there are already 35 municipal buildings built in Tallinn with 2,350 apartments. Tallinn spent 747 million kroons in the construction of the 35 municipal flat buildings.
According to the city's vice-mayor Eha Vork , Tallinn City Council started the first social support house building program in 2002, to abolish the unfair reforms on the law on private property, which tried to soften the after-effects for those people who needed housing assistance.