Babiš wants a state-owned factory for modular flats. The state should not build, Prague opposes
The current election campaign shows that the parties are by far the most creative when it comes to tackling the housing crisis. Some have to fine empty flats, tax more real estate, others reduce VAT on construction. In his new book, Prime Minister Andrej Babiš (YES) suggests that the state produce and build modular flats, ie prefabricated units that are located only at their destination. And for barely believable 16 thousand crowns per square meter. For comparison, according to the latest study by the consulting company Deloitte, the average sales price per square meter for common novelties in the Czech Republic is around 72 thousand crowns.
“Imagine that the village urgently needs new apartments. As soon as possible and as cheaply as possible, of course. All he has to do is pour the concrete slab on the plot. And then the state will take care of everything, “the premiere describes his vision in the book Share Before They Ban It, which he published during the election campaign. “The state will have an apartment factory. It will produce ready-made modules directly. Kitchen, living room, bathroom, bedroom, “he writes. The fully equipped flats are then assembled by a crane on site as lego into an apartment building.
Modular housing, widespread mainly in Scandinavia, is actually cheaper, but experience from the market suggests that flats will hardly cost only sixteen thousand crowns per square meter, if the state or municipality does not subsidize them. For example, the Nordic developers YIT and Skanska Reality, who are preparing pilot housing projects using prefabricated buildings in the Czech Republic, estimate savings of tens of percent.
Specifically, according to last year’s Skansky calculations, construction costs will be about twenty percent cheaper than for conventional new buildings. However, as the company’s spokeswoman Renata Vildomcová reminds, the prices of building materials originally rose this year. This mainly concerns wood, which is an important part of the prefabricated parts of the Livo apartment building concept, whose pilot project Skanska Reality is currently preparing in Loděnice near Beroun.
He sees the future in modular housing in Prague, even if only as an additional construction. Prefabricated parts are especially suitable only for small flats, not for large families, underground garages cannot be built at a reasonable price, and they are not suitable for classic urban structures.
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“They make sense mainly on land where construction will not begin until several decades ago, or on land that is not connected to the city,” says Marek Vácha, a spokesman for the Institute of Planning and Development, according to which the Prague Institute began examining the construction of modular houses.
Vácha does not doubt the meaning of creating a state factory for the production of prefabricated parts. “The state itself would not deal with the construction of public housing, because it does not have detailed knowledge of cities and the needs of their inhabitants,” he said, adding that the government should rather observe changes in legislation to support construction. At the same time, the municipality would welcome financial support and subsidies for public housing construction.