Sustainable use of our housing stock

I refer to the article Property Prices And Social housing by Charles Borg, chairman of the Housing Authority (October 15). As co-author and contributor to the points GRTU are proposing as part of the pre-budget discussion I feel it is my duty to clarify a number of misconceptions and alarmist interpretations that have been appearing in the media subsequent to their launch on October 7.

With the specific intention of addressing the oversupply issue within specific sectors of the local housing market, GRTU is proposing a number of initiatives that can be taken up by the government by itself or in partnership with the private sector. This is meant to mitigate possible hard landings to the construction and property market during this budget year.

It would seem quite a sensible and sustainable approach to use some of the current vacant housing stock for social purposes knowing full well that some of the property prices being offered are extremely competitive. The government would do well to partner with property owners in this respect and bank its own land for future uses when the private sector market starts once again exhibiting higher non-affordable prices for the more vulnerable sections of the society. This is a win-win situation both from the perspectives of provision of affordable housing and use of existing housing stock instead of adding to the supply of new units.

It can be rightfully argued that the issue of oversupply has been brought about by the developers themselves fuelled by spiralling land prices and Mepa policies (e.g. height relaxation policies, extension of scheme boundaries etc.) and thus they should be the main agents in solving this problem.

In fact this is what's happening; the same developers are correcting the market creating more competitive property prices and thus making them more affordable. Hence the GRTU's initiative for a public private partnership (PPP) approach.

In this respect the government's intention to build extra units seems highly unsustainable from a social, economic and environmental viewpoint and would cost the taxpayer much more than the PPP approach.

Thus, the allocated sums meant for the construction of extra housing units could be diverted into schemes such as the shared ownership pre-election promise which seems to have become victim of its own success when the government decided to stop it. Mr Borg referred to previous attempts by the Housing Authority to launch schemes for private sector take-up which were not pursued due to high prices set by the private sector itself. This was a few months/years back. The current market is the ideal fertile ground for such well-planned schemes to germinate and give the right fruit for the more vulnerable sections of our society.

Attacking the credibility of Sandro Chetcuti, president of the Property Section of the GRTU, is certainly not the right approach in this spirit of free discussion leading to the concrete actions that the government will be taking in the imminent budget.

The Housing Authority should not in my view be actively building new housing units in the current state of affairs in the property market.

Policies are there to serve a purpose. If that purpose can be achieved in a more sustainable way then it would be a criminal waste of public money if the Housing Authority persisted in building its own units.

It is important to point out that this initiative is only part of other suggestions that the GRTU is proposing to sustain the property and construction industry in the short to medium term. They can be viewed at www.grtu.net.