In mid-90s the dwellers of the multi-apartment buildings in cities of Ukraine gained a right to privatize their apartments. Since that time there has not been sufficient legal regulation over shared common property, including corridors, adjacent territories and staircases, which caused deterioration of the buildings, as many experts say. Building on successful experience of other countries, Ukraine allowed the creation of Associations of Co-owners of Multi-Apartment Houses (ACMHs) aka condominiums - organisations created by dwellers to improve operation of personal property and management and maintenance of shared common property.
Municipal Governance and Sustainable Development Programme (MGSDP), a UNDP-led project working in 22 different municipalities, has organized two workshops to explain the processes behind better ways of communal services delivery to dwellers of multi-apartment buildings. The workshops, supported by Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation, attracted over 60 representatives of local communities.
Since 2004 the Programme has been assisting the communities in 22 partner-municipalities in establishing and managing more then 370 community-based organizations and ACMHs are large share of them. These organizations united 40,000 citizens which implemented 172 local community-based projects.
In Novograd-Volynskiy they completely reformed housing and communal economy of their municipality. As a result, they created 25 ACMHs and reformed all existing ZHEOs. Sharing experience of the municipality, Mykola Borovets, City Mayor said: "Main purpose of establishing ACMHs is to give the dwellers a right to select managers, determine quality of services, appoint and control the cost of these services based on mutual understanding of the members of the ACMH".
The process of establishing ACMHs is slow and critical amount of such organizations is yet to be established.
The author of Amendments to the current Law on ACMH Mykhailo Berezovchuk, expert of Parliamentary Committee on State Building, Urban Construction and Housing and Municipal Economy, said: "There is lack of professional trainings and exchange of experience for management of ACMHs. The initiative to share experience by municipalities of Novograd-Volynskyi and Dolyna is very useful as 87% of housing stock are united in ACMHs in Novograd-Volynskyi and 10% in Dolyna".
Volodymyr Brygilevych, Head of Lviv-based Centre for Research of Local Self-Government presented the experience in management of multi-apartment houses of Germany, the Czech Republic and Poland. "In order to complete the reform of management of housing stock in urban Ukraine, it is necessary to strengthen three elements. First, the owners of the property should organise themselves in ACMHs. Second, management companies should be introduced. Last, managers and companies providing services should operate at the market", he said.
In Dolyna they launched a rapid reform in housing and communal sector of the municipality which leads to the establishment of an Advisory Coordination Council under Dolyna City Mayor. The Council would include Heads of local ACMHs and representatives of communal services of the municipality and would elaborate local decrees to facilitate emerging of effective owner by establishing ACMHs.
These workshops constitute the second stage of inter-municipal cooperation initiative between Dolyna and Novograd-Volynskiy municipalities on energy saving and housing reform which is an experimental activity of UNDP/MGSDP in 2009. The activity is implemented within the framework of a sub-project "Promoting Conditions of Participatory Governance and Development in Urban Areas- II", which is supported by Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation.
UNDP/MGSDP was initiated in 2004 for promoting democratic governance aimed at improving the livelihoods of people in urban areas across Ukraine under the framework of public-private partnership. The Programme cooperates with local communities of citizens, academia, small businesses and civil society organizations in 22 municipalities across Ukraine and other partners in private and public sectors. Together they apply various sustainable development mechanisms. Since 2004, UNDP/MGSDP supported 172 local community projects with total cost of UAH 20.2 mn.
Find more information about the Project's activities, at http://msdp.undp.org.ua
For more details, please, contact Galyna Gulenko, Monitoring and Communications Specialist, tel. 
+3 8044 501 42 03
or via e-mail: galyna.gulenko@undp.org.ua.
