The Low House Conference 2023 will discuss the challenges and prospects for private housing construction

The conference programme of Russian Construction Week will focus on the potential of low-rise construction for Russia's economic development and national prosperity. What financing instruments can be used in construction? How to optimize the cost of building infrastructure for housing construction which represents a significant portion of the budget? These and other questions will be discussed by experts at the 6th edition of the Low House Conference 2023, which will take place at 10.30am on March 2 at RosBuild.

The conference is organised by the National Association of Home Builders, the Russian Union of Designers and EXPOCENTRE AO.

Today, the Russian Government is paying a lot of attention to housing construction. Relevant mechanisms are being developed to develop housing, attract investors and large developers, who are gradually beginning to develop projects related to individual housing construction. By 2030, the goal is to increase the amount of housing stock from 36 million to 50 million sq m. In 2021, the share of residential housing was about 53% and exceeded the share of apartment buildings. One of the fastest growing segments of residential housing is wooden housing. According to the Wood Housing Association, in 2021 it will be 10,800 sq m, which is 1.5 million sq m more than in 2020.

Russian Minister of Construction, Housing and Utilities Irek Faizullin called low-rise construction the basis for the implementation of national projects. The minister stressed the need for regulatory changes that would accelerate the pace of low-rise construction.

“Last year, several laws came into force for developers who work in the residential housing sector: the possibility of individual construction on agricultural land, the extension of the dacha amnesty, and the preferential mortgage programme. In 2022, townhouses also received legal status, and the concept of residential housing was included in the Urban Environment programme,” says Chair at the Chamber of Commerce and Industry Committee on Entrepreneurship in Construction Efim Basin.

Another important change is the possibility of using shared construction in housing, which gives builders the ability to produce a higher quality product and guarantees consumers that the money invested in the purchase of the property will not get lost.

The conference within Russian Construction Week will also discuss the problems of wooden housing construction. Today its share is small, only about 10%. The roadmap approved by the Ministry of Construction and the Ministry of Emergency Situations in July 2022 should facilitate the development of this segment of housing construction. It is expected to last three years and includes research and the development of documentation to ensure fire, mechanical and seismic safety of wooden houses. Structural fire protection of buildings, safe routing of utilities and thermal and acoustic insulation of wooden housing are also to be regulated. At the moment, foreign regulatory frameworks are being compared, life cycle assessment methods for buildings are being studied, fire requirements and restrictions are being revised, and increases in fire resistance and structural fire risk classes are being optimised.

Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin has given instructions to submit proposals on systemic measures to support housing construction using prefabricated housing units, including preferential financing for the creation and modernisation of production facilities, co-financing for the purchase of prefabricated housing units by citizens and subsidising the mortgage rate on prefabricated housing units. As part of the development of low-rise construction, DOM.RF together with the Russian Ministry of Construction, Housing and Utilities and the Wood Housing Association held a competition for model wooden house construction projects, which resulted in 25 residential housing projects and 15 infrastructure buildings (schools, midwifery centres, and kindergartens). These are ready-made projects with complete project documentation that has undergone expert appraisal. Any customer can now order a local manufacturer to build a house or building based on these designs.

Strategic Development Director at the Wood Housing Association Semyon Goglev stressed the need for real help from the federal and municipal authorities in organising the integrated development of territories, “An integrated approach will allow to correctly calculate the occupancy and payback period, level out setbacks and avoid long construction periods and unclaimed facilities, as it happened in the early 2010s. This approach will make it possible to plan and produce the necessary materials and structures, and to form a sustainable domestic market for building materials, including timber with its undeniable advantages in industrialised low- and medium-rise construction.”

We invite construction and design companies and all industry professionals to take part in the Salon of Low-rise House Construction within Russian Construction Week 2023 from 28 February to 3 March 2023.

Join us at RosBuild!

Book your stand at the organiser’s website!