The head of Heimstaden Rafaj claims: After the revitalization, it will be better to live in the colonies

The head of Heimstaden Rafaj claims: After the revitalization, it will be better to live in the colonies

The Heimstaden company has so far unofficially announced that it is planning to revitalize some of its properties, specifically rental houses in former mining colonies across the region. The information came from Doubrava, where representatives of Heimstaden were already negotiating with the management of the town hall. From there, the tenants of your properties also sensed that "something is up". So they don't know anything officially yet? What are your plans, how far are the preparations and what will this mean for them in the coming months?

Not officially from us, unfortunately. This situation occurred due to unfortunate coordination at our company, for which I want to apologize to the people, not only in Doubrava, but to all those who live near Heimstaden and who might have been confused after these news.

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Okay, so let's get to what's coming up...

The owner of Heimstaden is primarily interested in ensuring that his tenants live in dignified conditions and have quality housing. Just as we are continuously revitalizing our apartment buildings in cities, we now want to start revitalizing family houses, which until now have been a kind of Cinderella. I'm talking about houses in former mining colonies, where we have several hundred properties for which the Finnish name for wooden houses has been adopted. However, we also have brick family houses. In addition to maintaining the quality of our rental housing, our second driver is the fact that we, as a company, have committed to stop burning coal in these houses by 2028. Modernization of the heating in our properties must therefore take place.

Do you already know where and how to start?

We have to grasp it all somehow. We are now in the phase where he is monitoring the areas where the houses are standing, we are finding out what we can do with them, because we often find that revitalization is not possible for some of the wooden houses, not only because of their dilapidation.

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We definitely want to start with the houses that are in the most desolate condition, so we need to act quickly before they become completely uninhabitable.

One of the areas where we will start is Doubrava, where we are checking the condition of our properties and next year we want to build the first, so-called pilot houses. We have several empty houses there, which will go to the ground and in their place will grow the mentioned "piles". I would like to correct the initial information from the media that the demolition of three specific houses, where tenants are still living, is about to be demolished. No, the three descriptive numbers that were written about will not be demolished at this time. I would like to apologize to those people for the misinformation. We will meet with them next week and discuss the whole situation.

Wooden, so-called Finnish houses and brick houses in Doubrava. The owner of the real estate - the Heimstaden company - is planning the revitalization of this area and some demolition. Source: Deník/Tomáš Januszek

When I spoke to some people in Doubrava on Monday, they argued that they had contracts for an indefinite period and therefore did not understand why and where they should move. They only had information from the town hall, and it was obviously incomplete...

Yes, this is the result of the bad communication in our company that I talked about at the beginning. The situation is a little different. I can assure you that in Doubrava we will start the revitalization of houses that are currently empty or will become so in the coming months. I can reassure the old residents, who usually have contracts for an indefinite period, that we will definitely not demolish their houses next year. As for the next years, it will depend on the condition of the house. It doesn't necessarily always have to be a demolition. In any case, in most cases there will have to be such an intervention that it is not possible to keep the tenant in place. In cases where we have to do something with the house, we will offer the tenant either replacement housing that he chooses from our portfolio, or straight away new housing in the houses that we will build as part of the pilot project. If we have to evict someone, of course we will offer them alternative housing, that is what the law requires us to do. And we will go beyond the law, we want the compensation to be richer.

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What about tenants who have fixed-term contracts?

We will deal with each case individually. However, for certain times, it can be assumed that we will not extend them further for the given house. It is still premature to share details, even in Doubrava we still do not have a clear phasing of how things will proceed. But we will certainly not eliminate the colony across the board. It will all be more complicated for the given territory and for us, but we are ready for it. In any case, we will talk to people about their specific situation and possible offers in time.

If someone has to leave "their" house, will they be offered to return to a new one after a while?

Yes. We want to agree with him in advance whether the tenant wants to return, or chooses to live in another of our houses or apartments, or whether he will solve it in another way.

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You said you wouldn't liquidate the colonies as a whole. Only those houses that are in bad condition will disappear and new ones will grow in their place.

Heimstaden boss Rafaj claims: After revitalization it will be better to live in the colonies

Yes. As already stated, we are starting to monitor the condition of all properties in the areas we want to revitalize, and unoccupied houses in poor condition will be given priority. We will build new wooden buildings on the vacated areas, into which we will be able to move tenants whose houses we will demolish. And we will offer others to new interested parties.

If the tenant wants to return and live in the new one, roughly how long will he have to go to temporary housing?

My idea, which I also try to instill in our investment team, is that we first build new housing in a specific location so that there is enough for those we want to evict. It could also be the case that people actually move from street to street. This is my ideal idea that we are working towards. So far, it seems that it could work out in most locations. In the event that it is not necessary to demolish the house, but it will only be reconstructed, we would like to offer, especially to old residents, a move to a vacated house right in that location, and of course we will pay them the costs of the move. We have to discuss the living conditions in the new one.

Wooden, so-called Finnish houses and brick houses in Doubrava. The owner of the real estate - the Heimstaden company - is planning the revitalization of this area and some demolition. Source: Deník/Tomáš Januszek

It has already been said here that the revitalization of houses in colonies across the region should concern several hundred properties. Are we able to tell which localities will be affected, even in part?

I can't say at the moment. We are still finalizing the whole concept. We should know by the end of the year how we will approach which location. But I can say this simply: In all the areas where we operate, we have only two approaches - either we are in an area where we have sold out real estate, we have only a few left and we will continue to sell them. Or they are areas that we believe are interesting to us and we will revitalize them. But the whole process is supposed to take about seven years, so we will adapt to the situation over time.

So try to list the cities where your real estate will be affected?

We have Finnish and other family houses awaiting revitalization in twenty or more locations - in Petřvald, Doubrava, Orlov, Horní Suchá, Hrušov, Vítkovice, Radvanice, Bartovice or Hranečník. There are a lot of them. In any case, before we start revitalization anywhere, we will introduce our idea to those who are affected by it, i.e. the municipality and the affected tenants.

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How will the planned revitalization affect the possibility that the tenants who previously applied to buy the property will actually buy it back?

That's a bit of an unfortunate story. In the past, we actually implemented those sales, but we stopped it about a year and a half ago. We needed to do an inventory of this property of ours. Anyway, at the moment, we will announce at the end of this year where we will revitalize and we will no longer sell in those locations. But I allow minor exceptions. And in locations where we have already sold many houses, we will probably finish the sales. About. It's not 100%.

Many of the tenants of Finnish houses have lived in them for decades and during that time have invested a lot of money in modernization and necessary maintenance beyond the normal. If "their" houses are going to be torn down now, does that mean that they will lose those investments, or will you negotiate with them for some compensation for the invested funds?

Yes, we are aware of the situation. That's why I gave my colleagues the task of monitoring the exact condition of each house. Because, as I said, we want to assess each case individually, we have a thousand stories in a thousand houses. Few will be the same. I saw a house that the tenant renovated very responsibly, that is, the house is in perfect condition and does not fall into our revitalization plan. I can even imagine that there is a house or several houses somewhere that are really in order, and they can be fine for the next 10 years, they have ecological heating, a heat pump, so they can stay in the middle of the "new" colony.

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So?

Well, besides that, there are a lot of people who feel that they have invested in the house, but in a way that is unimportant to us as the owner. For example, if someone built a gazebo, a garage or repaired a toilet unprofessionally, but the house is falling on his head, and he didn't have the owner's consent, so he did it illegally. Yes, even these people may feel that they put their money into improving the house and we now have an obligation to compensate them. It certainly won't be like this.

They probably won't like that...

As I said, we are monitoring the condition of individual houses, one by one. There will be thousands of those cases. With some houses we find that they are fine, but it may happen that someone made some partial change, a modification that was necessary and made sense. In such a case, we can consider some kind of compensation. We are now evaluating it and feel obliged, especially in cases where we have given consent to a major renovation. But not in others. It's always about communication and we will do everything so that our tenants have information and feel that we want to build the concept of friendly homes.

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