Formulation of Municipal Housing Strategies

Municipal Housing Strategies (MHS) have been developed as one of the basic instruments for planning, budgeting and implementing the housing policies of municipalities and cities addressing the needs of the entire local population. Housing for low-income and vulnerable families has been considered together with other segments of the housing market. MHS is composed of three main chapters: Municipal Housing Profile, Strategic objectives and Action Plan. The formulation of MHS has started in Kraljevo in the fall of 2005 and was followed by Nis, Valjevo and Kragujevac in 2006 and Cacak, Stara Pazova and Pancevo in 2007. These seven municipalities were pioneers in Serbia for the formulation of MHS.

The process of the formulation of MHS was supported by the ‘Guidelines for formulation of Municipal Housing Strategies’. The Guidelines were developed in line with the actual European and international practice and further tailored to the Serbian context through a wide range of consultative workshops with key national and local stakeholders and by drawing lessons from the experiences of the local authorities in the formulation process fo MHS.

During the process of MHS formulation, SIRP has provided technical assistance to MHAs by through standard and tailored trainings (including strategic planning, stakeholder analysis, media and communication strategies, definition of strategic objectives, action planning etc) and substantive consultations and workshops with the contribution of national and international experts. The first MHS was finalized and adopted in Nis in December 2006 as the firs adopted housing strategy in Serbia developed through transparent and participatory process. The City/ Municipal Assemblies of Kraljevo and Kragujevac adopted MHS in 2007.

MUNICIPAL HOUSING PROFILE

The Municipal Housing Profile gathers and analyses data on the population, the housing stock, the housing market, tax issues, land and services availability, the housing situation of vulnerable groups, sub-standard housing settlements, and the behaviour of all stakeholders on the market. Data collection is based on the Census, local evidences and registers, existing surveys, urban plans, individual interviews. Estimates are made by combining different data from different sources, in order to get to the problems.

The problems lead to the prioritization of strategic options and they are defined in the second part of the MHS Document. Strategic priorities, such as interventions on the market by introducing non-profit housing schemes (public rental and owner-occupied), upgrading of informal settlements with special emphasis on Roma, improvement of condominium management and maintenance, institutional capacity building of the local public sector are frequent issues of local housing policies, discussed and agreed among stakeholders.