“Since 1990 there hasn’t been any nationwide housing policy at work in Romania”
More than often, Romanians undergo a frustrating learning process; they only find out how things really are like in their apartment after they have bought it. To avoid such belated lessons, the user ought to possess a housing culture, which can be gained only through self-education and authorities’ involvement in creating and maintaining such a culture, says architect and architectural PhD Liviu Ianăși, a specialist in spatial planning and urban management.
However, it seems that these are but distant preoccupations. Meanwhile, after the Revolution, there is no nationwide housing policy, not to mention one that would consider some particular regional features or a social or economic moment. “Whenever such responses did emerge, they came in bits and pieces, on a smaller scale and, what is awfully saddening, completely unrelated,” explains Ianăși.
Vlad Odobescu: How did the authorities’ projection on housing change during the last few decades? Can we really speak of policies or of just clumsy scrabbling?
Liviu Ianăși: In my opinion, authorities’ approach after 1990 could be defined as ‘an unhappy encounter’ of two illusions: the illusion that the market and ‘its invisible hand’ will help solve all housing needs, and the illusion that a comprehensive regulated and authoritarian framework will be the answer to all housing and house issues by their simple, official publication. I won’t venture the opinion that such illusions were self-fueled or half-conscious; however, I can certainly say that both proved their lack of sensibility – or even deafness – as to the professionals in the fields of economy, sociology, life quality, urbanism, architecture, social psychology or even political sciences who warned against both the gaps and dysfunctionalities at the housing level and the evolution of needs and users’ profile.
At the same time, the vast, diverse, and praiseworthy international experience has always been played down and even condescended, as if “with us things are different, it’s not possible, see how unfulfilled they feel;” and there came the ready-made answers like: “we are going to draw up a complete, extraordinary national strategy, etc.,” or maverick responses like “this or that instrument/mechanism will be the solution to all possible issues”; in my opinion, the National Housing Agency or mortgage credit guarantee fall into this category.
To put in a nutshell, despite any statements, since 1990 there has been no nationwide housing policy at work in Romania and, naturally, there hasn’t been any differentiated approach according to region or to some processes like the ante-crisis, post-crisis periods, the beginning of ‘big migrations’ or the ‘disappearance of professionals’. Whenever such responses did emerge, they came in bits and pieces, on a smaller scale and, what is awfully saddening, completely unrelated.
As concerns ‘housing’, the accumulation of failures was also caused by the absence of urban policies (foolishly mistaken for the elaboration of the Land Urban Plan) or regional policies, which obviously were too weak because these regions had a different development pace and the three decades were not long enough to help carry out the all-too-necessary territorial and administrative reforms.
How functional is the architect-client relationship in Romania?
Since I am not a wizard in the field – I don’t practise architectural design –, let me be bold enough and voice two remarks. Firstly, a “client” can be the user of the architectural object and also the developer, the investor, and sometimes the builder. Secondly, the architect-client relationship involves something more than a contract that yields to – according to a sometimes oversimplified algorithm of the kind “hey, I’ve got what you mean, I’ll design your project, see to its being implemented as such, and if I don’t meet your requirements you are the only (i)responsible here; you pay, so long, good-bye, wow me, what’s come of it” – a product-project that is sold and paid for. The one in which the architect understands / assumes / does his job is always reflected – both directly and indirectly – in the ‘architectural product’ more than we’d like to believe at first sight.
In which way can the user / dweller become a more involved actor of the rather complicated housing equation?
First of all, through a different level of ‘housing culture’. Consequently, the cultural level can only raise through education in the first place. In many cases the user / dweller is not very much concerned with his own education in matters of housing, except the patchy post/in-use belated and frustrating lessons. Then, it is about public authorities’ involvement (other than in norms and/or fines) in dialogs and the nurturing of ‘housing culture’ -, yet in a less populist political discourse; they should open up more sensitively at the social and economic polarization and the wide range of needs and situations.
If we study all the data of real estate market, we can easily notice the equilibrium between the demand of old and new apartments. Why are the old apartments built under communism still wanted?
There are three possible answers, I think. Firstly, it involves a degree of inertia that assumes that ‘one knows what it is like’, a kind of inertia that will change according with the aspirations of the new clients – see the importance of garage/parking place. Secondly, it’s the already ‘partly built neighborhood’ scenario, which is an advantage; even the densest zones prior to 1990 seem better equipped and organized than the new “park-residence” type. Then, the old ones are like some ‘birds in the hand’: the possible later surprises in matters of repairs and other inconveniences are less risky than the uncertainty of some ‘mishaps’ that might have ugly consequences in the blocks/zones to be constructed. It is only in Bucharest that the following argument which in other cases might sound bizarre/ paradoxical may hold: ‘it withstands earthquakes’ – which leads to the years of reference 1980 or 1991, to a sort of ‘selection’ after all; and most buyers are influenced by the nightmarish stories heard from friends or read on forums about ‘being cheated’, ‘fraud schemes’, ‘disenchantment’, ‘hidden facts’, and avoid buying new constructions. So, the absence of a well-balanced market, publicly monitored and controlled has a major impact on buyers’ choice.
Today they mostly build two-room apartments. Can they offer a quality place to a regular family (a couple with a child, for instance)?
In my opinion, the choice of two-room apartments resides in the overlapping of two perspectives: “the two-room apartments have affordable prices, and the investor builds them” and “for as much as I can in this stage of my life, this two-room apartment is a good bargain; I’ll change it later”. Strangely enough, the two perspectives boost each other.
Let’s do a little exercise of imagination: What would the Romanian real estate market look like without the First Home Program?
As off-balanced and wild as it is now, yet with fewer beneficiaries for sure.
If things go on in the same way, which are the major threats to quality housing that you can foretell?
The most serious would be a deeper social-economic gap (except socio-psychologists and foreign analysts, everybody arrogantly ignores this really frightening process occurring in bigger and also smaller towns; from the housing viewpoint, the life quality is declining as compared with the investments made in towns; an increased number of homeless or of those living in squalidness/serious poverty; in this respect a very consistent and alarming volume, The Atlas of Marginalized Areas doesn’t seem to move the authorities in charge; a lower level of housing ‘equipment’ (kindergartens, health facilities, schools, sport courts and leisure areas, etc.), which is not the case with malls; by reflex, a lesser degree of attractiveness for investments and/or the more or less qualified young workforce in certain towns (in this respect, the most serious (i)responsibility is to pretend to be helpless as Bucharest’s local authorities and those from smaller or bigger towns do); and, finally, the vulnerability is real in smaller towns.
Do you know any examples of well-thought-out, equitable housing policies from European countries?
Most countries from the European Union have at least the ‘basics’of housing policy, but the northern countries, Great Britain, Germany, Holland top the list, including in the way they tailor short-term instruments and programs able to cope with realities over a period of time; they also have politically established priorities on territorial gaps without endangering the grounds of housing policies. I am very much aware that there isn’t an ‘iconic-model-policy’, but you can learn lots of things, such as institutional innovations, financial mechanisms, and especially the ways they know how to focus and empower a whole range of housing actors.
Interview by Vlad Odobescu.
