Labour MP urges government to flood the market

The government should flood the market with affordable housing units in order to bring down house prices, Labour social affairs spokesman Karl Chircop told Parliament yesterday.

He said during the opening of the debate on the Housing Authority that the government should not continue just reacting to the worsening situation but needed to act decisively to bring house prices down to affordable levels for average families.

The situation had deteriorated such that a Church commission had also voiced its concern recently, he said. The Housing Authority, however, was not building enough tenements to meet demand and as house prices rose, so did applications before the authority. Dr Chircop also complained that the sale prices of the authority's own housing units were far too high, especially for those on a minimum wage, with Lm12,000 charged for a single bedroomed unit, Lm14,000 for a two-bedroomed unit and Lm30,000 for a house.

There was also need for the finishing standards of the authority's housing units to be raised because these too meant increased costs for tenants, Dr Chircop said.

The time had also come to create a fund for the maintenance of the common areas of apartment blocks and the authority should impose regulations on tenants before they actually bought units within those blocks so that they would continue contributing to the fund after the sale.

Dr Chircop said the opposition backed schemes such as shared ownership, but the strong demand for this scheme showed how acute the housing problem was. The scheme should be improved, especially in the case of young couples to obviate problems which sometimes led to breakups.

The opposition also backed urban regeneration but the authority also needed to improve the environment in existing housing estates.

On the scheme for the maintenance of government property, Dr Chircop said that the most substandard properties were those passed on by the Curia to the government. Something had to be done about this because the tenants of these units deserved a decent living.

Dr Chircop said he agreed with a comment made earlier by the minister that the authority was taking precautions to deter the purchase of government properties. Such properties were built and transferred for social purposes, he observed. The authority, however, should use the same yardstick for everyone.

The Labour MP urged the authority to accelerate its scheme for the installation of lifts in housing blocs so that residents, particularly the elderly, would not need to seek alternative accommodation.