Reclaim Prague Preliminary Study (Part 3)

RECLAIM PRAGUE NETWORK

A COLLECTIVE

RECLAIM PRAGUE

A COLLECTIVE LIVING NETWORK

Preliminary study

Universität Liechtenstein

SS 2020

MARTIN MRÁZ

martin.mraz15@gmail.com

Supervisors

Clarissa Rhomberg

Peter Staub

Tutors

Celina Martinez

Christoph Michels

Collective housing is fast becoming a desirable living situation for many urban citizens. From humble archaic origins, people have chosen to create organized cooperative homes where they pool resources, share spaces, and build strong social bonds within a community they have agency in. Looking for an alternative to the highly individualized urban societies of the modern west, people are rediscovering the benefits of co-living. It addresses the problem of living unaffordability, fosters democratic decision making and personal responsibility in communities, and offers respite from loneliness and division in cities. Prague is one city of many which is experiencing a housing crisis driven by global financialization of housing. Following the Global Financial Crisis of 2008, an international trend saw financial institutions begin to purchase large swathes of housing as stable investment of accumulated wealth. The most troubling part is affordable housing meant for low-income earners proved to be the most profitable. Further compounding Prague’s woes are a hindered construction sector due to legislative barriers and an extremely individualized approach to housing design. The project offers a solution through Reclaim Prague, an initiative to mobilise vacant municipal property to build communities of collectives for affordable housing. Working with the city, this bottom-up project orginses housing collectives and the resources needed to refurbish and run otherwise dismissed buildings. Reclaim Prague defines a network model that can be implemented to create a diversified and more robust housing stock.

This thesis is about reclaiming the city of Prague for its citizens, to create meaningful change through systematic support of civic activity. This project endeavors to answer the question: In the context of Prague’s housing crisis, how can the architecture of collective living play its part in creating a desirable, affordable, and robust city?

the method of the theoretical report

the method of the preliminary study

Fig. 01 Comparison of research methods

(author’s drawing)

Prague is in the grips of a housing crisis, diminishing its liveliness and its citizens’ livelihoods, set upon it by global financial interests and a lethargic local political climate. The topic of reclaiming the city emerged from the author’s experience of Prague. Rising housing prices and an extremely individualized public ethos helped form the theoretical report, Taking Control (Mráz, 2020), which addressed the importance of semi-autonomy within the city. Learning from the housing cooperatives of Zürich, the study sought to understand the interaction between the city and communities of collective living. This preliminary study is a more precise formulation of the same problem, aiming to digest the discourse on housing crises and incubate a remedy for the case of Prague.

Prague’s housing situation arises from a blending of global financial and social trends and a tumultuous domestic political history. In 1968, a wave of riots stemming from human rights activism swept through the world. While the democratic west fought to extend their freedoms, the eastern bloc fought to acquire fundamental rights (Tabery, 2018). Henri Lefebvre, in his 1968 book Le Droit à la Ville (Lefebvre, 1968), introduced the concept of the right to the city, the universal right to urban space. Lefebvre’s text predated, and perhaps even partly predicated, the revolts in France of the same year, and his work still resonates until this day. Through the Lefebvrian understanding, we can consider Prague’s housing crisis as a fight for the right to the city, a fight of citizens versus neoliberal hegemony. The city is now contending with the same afflictions as many other modern cities, namely a globalized economy that commodifies houses into assets rather than homes.

Chapters 2-4 unfold the nature of the global housing crisis. In chapter 02, we arrive at the work of Saskia Sassen, who in her book Global City (Sassen, 2001), describes cities as nodes in the global economic network. Through Sassen’s work we are able to unpack the paradigm of the financialization of housing and learn to recognize assets in urban space. The scale of the problem is presented by the United Nations special rapporteur on adequate housing, Leilani Farha, whose work points out the problem of real estate firms entering the field of human rights, and the duty of states to acquire equal opportunity to affordable housing for their people. (Farha, 2017, 2020) In this context, chapter 03 looks at the state of Prague's housing policy, which is taking steps to obtain important tools for urban development but seems to ignore the roots of the housing problem.

Chapters 5-7 explore how communities and collective housing play an important role in the development of diverse and resilient cities. Chapter 05 unpacks the importance of belonging to people through the work of George Monbiot, who, in his book Out of the Wreckage (Monbiot, 2017), introduces the politics of the commons. Broader investigation of collective living as a means to address contemporary urban problems is offered by Danish office, SPACE10 in their publication Imagine (SPACE10, 2018). The Self-Made City (Ring, 2013), New Housing in Zurich (Boudet, 2017), and

The Vienna Model (Förster & Menking, 2018) help in chapter 07 to identify the importance of collective living for cities, as well as identifying different strategies that cities adopt in order to tackle their housing issues. The historical context of Czech collective housing is explored in the book Four Ways to the Collective House (trans.) (Guzik, 2014).

Such discourse is hard to come by in the Czech Republic which keeps the co-living movement at arm’s length.This is partly due to systemic barriers to the emergence of collective housing, including the hierarchical structures of housing cooperatives and the difficulty of engagement with institutions for unconventional housing projects.

Chapters 8-10 focus on connecting the previous research with design practice. Designing cities for people is an intuitive idea but it flew in the face of modernist thinking which dominated urban planning for the last century. It took the seminal work of Jan Gehl, the Danish architect to embrace the social interaction in everyday city life and to offer us a road to redemption, which he explores in Cities for People (Gehl, 2010) and Life Between Buildings (Gehl, 2011). Continuing the Danish approach of humanist urbanity, David Sim formulates principles for diverse and resilient cities in his book Soft City (Sim, 2019). Sim’s work helps to contextualize the narrower focused writings of the Swiss initiative Neustart Schweiz [NS] and the Austrian architect Dietmar Eberle. In their book Nach Hause kommen (Neustart Schweiz, 2016), NS define autonomous neighborhoods within Swiss Municipalities. Together with Eberle’s (Eberle, 2015) pragmaticism for designing mixed-use buildings, we can build up a full range of principles for designing people-centered cities. This approach of mixing uses is problematic in Prague and is explored by Yvette Vašourková in her dissertation, The Importance of the Metropolitan Palace for the Sustainable City (Vašourková, 2018). Vašourková states the importance of long term investment in development projects in contrast to the predominant practice of five year investment embraced by developers.

Finally, this work tries to answer the question: In the context of Prague’s housing crisis, how can the architecture of collective living play its part in creating a diverse, affordable, and robust city?

By identifying the opportunity to ally with the Prague municipality, Reclaim Prague aims to convert empty municipal buildings into affordable collective housing.

01 THE SPLIT OF 1968

THE RIGHT TO THE CITY

In May 1968, French students and workers in Paris began a series of protests known as the French May. This significant event represented the escalation of many social conflicts of the sixties. Preceded by uprisings in Germany, Italy, and the United States, the Parisians presented a series of demands addressing human rights. (Seidman, 2004)

If some conceded that May had failed to change society politically, a popular consensus formed that it had succeeded culturally. Instead of working-class revolution or a popular front, the events unleashed a torrent of hedonism, libertarianism, and individualism. Sexual mores relaxed, social relationships became less authoritarian, and society became more tolerant. (Seidman, 2004, p.8)

This extraordinary global protest was widely presenting itself with banners claiming “the right to the city,” referring to the influential 1968 text of the same title by Henri Lefebvre.

The right to the city manifests itself as a superior form of rights: right to freedom, to individualization in socialization, to habit and to inhabit. The right to the oeuvre, to participation and appropriation (clearly distinct from the right to property), are implied in the right to the city (Lefebvre 1968 in Kofman and Lebas, 1996: 174).

Various movements have adopted the idea of the right to the city that, as a red thread, unites the demands of the oppressed or alienated until now. The core debate is, who has the right to the city? If it is bonded to residency, it excludes a large group of the poor, such as migrants and informal workers, or the urban nomads, commuting from one place to another. (Brown, 2010)

Lefebvre’s idea is that citizenship pertains to all urban inhabitants, not confined to national citizenship but held by all who inhabit the city, but applying this notion poses considerable challenges. (Brown, 2010, p.3)

While the French May remained a strong symbol of defiance, none of the political demands were fully achieved (Kettle, 2018). Nevertheless, the events produced, or indirectly, inspired a number of movements. The hippies, were one such group that defied the status quo, exploring the life of tribal communes freed from social conventions. Squatting also became a broadly occurring form of claiming the right to urban space. One such example is the 1980 Opernhauskrawalle in Zurich, which trigerred a wave of squatting, later transforming its energy into current progressive housing cooperative projects. (Boudet, 2017)

Despite the political failure of French May, Lefebvre's point remained relevant. In the 1990s, the World Charter on the Right to the City adopted it to be a theme in the World Social Forum. Its goal was to establish the right to the city as a human right by the UN. (Brown, 2010) The charter defines citizens as:

“all people who live in the city, either permanently or in transit. [...] Everyone has a right to the city without discrimination of gender, age, race, ethnicity, political and religious orientation. (WSF, 2004, in Brown 2010, p.4)

The right to the city is a powerful banner with broad appeal under which to address injustices of the modern city. The use of new media in attempts to co-opt existing power bases provides scope for incremental change, which cumulatively will strengthen rights for the urban poor. However, [Brown argues], it is only by readdressing the power balance in the triangle between economic production, civil society, and governance that real progress can be gained. (2010, p.6)

As the housing crisis unfolds, we realize that the right to the city lies right at its core. We see here a clash of the basic need for adequate housing, with the possibility of making money through real estate speculation (buying property with the intention to resell it for higher price). Today's crisis has in common with previous events the desire to live in the city with dignity, regardless of the amount of income.

BEHIND THE IRON CURTAIN

The euphoria of 1968 also arrived in former Czechoslovakia. Referred to as the Prague Spring, it was a time of political liberalization when reforms were about bringing freedom and rights, an approach in the context of the surrounding communist countries. Unfortunately, the reform euphoria lasted only about seven months until the tanks of the Red Army occupied Prague, and restored massive restrictions and censorship. These seven months were the only spark of freedom in the otherwise very unfree Communist period between World War II and the Velvet Revolution in November 1989. (Tait, 2018; Horký, 2019)

The year 1968 was exceptional for the whole Western world, [...] but the Czech unrest had a completely different dimension. While our neighbors in democratic countries fought to extend their freedoms, there was an effort in Czechoslovakia to at least acquire the fundamental rights. (Tabery, 2018, translated by the author)

The fall of the Berlin Wall, yet, did not bring the idealized freedom to the eastern block. While the excited crowd broke through the Wall to the west, the west was watching motionless, having already experienced the desired capitalism (Buden, 2013). The following three decades meant catching up with the west for the Czechs.

Joining the UN, NATO, the EU, or entering the Schengen. After thirty years, we are witnessing a new conflict between the east and the west. Due to

[...] the frustrating overload of the demands of the new age, the naive admiration of the West has become in many places its radical rejection. [...] Distrust against the state and fellow citizens in communist times failed to be replaced by a cooperative social spirit. [...] The walls between East and West fell at a time when many existing borders also began to fall in the West under the influence of globalization. This was a great stress for many Western Europeans, but it was a double cultural shock for Eastern Europeans. (Bittner, 2019, translated by the author)

In retrospect, we see that Eastern Europeans lack the fifty years of building the basic trust in capitalism that their Western neighbors had. We also did not get rid of the fear of the collective. As the cultural and intellectual hub of the Czech people, Prague is having to reconcile its progressive desires for social reform with the heavy footprint of a communist past, weighing down efforts for change as all policy decisions are scrutinised for any potential socialist trojan horses. Prague’s fight for the right to the city now sees it contending with the same afflictions as many other modern cities, namely a globalised economy that commodifies houses into assets rather than homes.

02 NOT A HOUSING CRISIS

STAYING AT HOME

In 2020 the world faced an unprecedented challenge as the coronavirus pandemic spread from country to country with dizzying speed. Nearly all nations issued social distancing policies to slow down the spread of the virus with one clear message: “Stay at home!” The crisis has compounded various global issues, and one of them is housing, “the front line defense against the COVID-19 outbreak.” (Farha, 2020, p. 1)

Housing has become the frontline defense against the coronavirus. Home has rarely been more of a life or death situation [...] approximately 1.8 billion people worldwide live in homelessness and grossly inadequate housing, often in overcrowded conditions, lacking access to water and sanitation –making them particularly vulnerable to contracting the virus, as they are often suffering from multiple health issues. [...] I am urging States to take extraordinary measures to secure the right to housing for all to protect against the pandemic. (Farha, 2020, p. 1)

Farha’s work promotes the right to adequate housing as a fundamental human right as declared by the UN in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Farha has investigated the trend leading to the commodification of housing, where houses are no longer purchased for residence but as secure investments to generate capital. We are witnessing the consequences of the 2008 financial crisis, after which big financial groups invested their money into real estate. By accumulating housing property, the commercial businesses entered the field of human rights,increasing social pressures on cities. One of Farha’s efforts to initiate the shift back is the foundation of the platform Shift which connects various actors who share the need for resistance. (Farha in PUSH, Gertten, F. (Producer), & Jangård, M. (Director), 2019) What has come to be known as the "housing crisis" may be at the heart of the crisis of neoliberal politics.

FINANCIALIZATION OF HOUSING

To unpack the processes triggered by buying up housing in cities, we have to consider the city as a social space with social classes and their power. Saskia Sassen describes the city as a place where even the powerless and poor can contribute to making history and culture by simply being present. The balance and cosmopolitanism of a city is threatened when corporate interests begin to redevelop urban space on a large scale. (Sassen, 2015)

The sharp scale-up in the buying of buildings [stands out], even in cities that have long been the object of such investments, notably NY and London. [...] Today there are about 100 cities worldwide that have become significant destinations for such acquisitions – foreign corporate buying of properties from 2013 to 2014 grew by 248% in Amsterdam/Randstadt, 180% in Madrid and 475% in Nanjing. In contrast, the growth rate was relatively lower for the major cities in each region: 68.5% for New York, 37.6% for London, and 160.8% for Beijing. (Sassen, 2015, par. 12)

The land on which the purchased buildings stand is then built up by much larger luxury projects, whose large footprint changes to the original scale. Small businesses disappear, as well as the fineness of the street network. Density increases, but the quality of urban space is not improved. To understand what the housing market undergoes, we have to change our methodology and exit many formats that we are used to understanding cities, and learn to recognize assets. (Sassen, 2018)

The financialization of housing has its origins in neoliberalism, the deregulation of housing markets, and structural adjustment programmes imposed by financial institutions and agreed to by states. (Farha, 2017, p. 6)

In the 1970s, global politics shifted from a relatively regulated environment with progressive taxes towards the unregulated free market. While until the mid-70s, the wages of goods-producing workers grew with the same tempo as the work productivity, from then on productivity continues to grow, but wages began to stagnate. This deregulation, followed by privatization of housing, supported the transition towards investment in housing. (Cígr et al., 2018)

Projekt St. George Wharf na břehu Temže v Londýně zhmotňuje financializaci bydlení. Byty zde slouží investorům k uložení přebytečného kapitálu. Dle zjištění Guardianu jsou dvě třetiny bytů v rukou zahraničního kapitálu1 (Foto: zoopla.co.uk)

1 https://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/may/24/revealed-foreign-buyers-own-two-thirds-of-tower-stgeorge-wharf-london

Cígr

al., 2018 p.21)

Vývoj produktivity a mezd v USA. Do poloviny 70. let (silné regulace, odbory a progresivní daně) rostly mzdy stejným tempem jako produktivita práce. Poté nastupuje neoliberalismus (neregulovaný volný trh) a zatímco stále roste produktivita, tak mzdy stagnují. Kromě rostoucích cen bydlení, jsou stagnující či pomalu rostoucí mzdy důležitým faktorem zvyšující se nedostupnosti bydlení.

Return on real estate investment compared to equity investments

Investice do nemovitostí (Real Estate 10,71 %) jsou dnes dvakrát výnosnější než investice do akcií (S&P 500 5,43 %). Z bydlení se stal nejlepší investiční produkt. (Zdroj: Realtyshares.com)

Fig.

Fig. 02 Productivity and average real earnings (BLS in

et

03

(Realtyshare.com in Cígr et al., 2018 p.20)

HOUSING AS A HUMAN RIGHT

Surprisingly, what the big firms find attractive the most are the poor households. They are the easiest to turn into profit, and they are everywhere. The effect that these practices have is emptying of urban land and emptying of buildings, while the land increases in value.

One key transformation is a shift from mostly small private to large corporate modes of ownership, and from public to private. This is a process that takes place in bits and pieces, some big and some small, and to some extent these practices have long been part of the urban land market and urban development. But today’s scale-up takes it all to a whole new dimension, one that alters the historic meaning of the city. (Sassen, 2015, par. 23)

To label this process as gentrification would be misleading. Gentrification generally describes the process of creative communities entering poorer neighborhoods and increasing its popularity by their activities. The practice of land grabbing finds itself in the field of human rights. (Sassen, 2018)

GENTRIFICATION

the neighborhood becomes unaffordable for its raising popularity

LANDGRABBING

land and buildings are turned into assets and traded as investment

The right to adequate housing is, at its core, the right to a place to live in dignity and security. It is interdependent with other human rights, particularly the right to equality and non-discrimination and the right to life. It is against those core human rights values that the actions of states in relation to financial actors and housing systems are to be assessed. [...] The State must regulate, direct and engage with private market and financial actors, not simply to ensure that they do not explicitly violate rights, but also to ensure that the rules under which they operate and their actions are consistent with the realization of the right to adequate housing. States are obliged under international human rights to ensure that private investors respond to the needs of residents for secure, affordable housing and do not cater only to the wealthy or purchase homes simply to leave them empty. (Farha, 2017, p. 5-6)

The earlier mentioned activity of Leilani Farha stimulated an initiative of local governments. Over thirty cities signed under the Cities for Adequate Housing Declaration in order to approach the Sustainable Development Goal of the UN to “Make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable” by 2030.” (Cities for Adequate Housing [CFAH], 2018)

[...] real estate speculation, high cost housing, inadequate regulation, socio-spatial segregation, insecurity of tenure, substandard housing, homelessness, urban sprawl or informal urban enlargements without requisite facilities or infrastructure, are growing phenomena that threaten the equity and sustainability of our cities. Given this situation, local governments cannot stay on the sidelines, and need to take a central role. For all these reasons, we call for the following actions. (CFAH, 2018, p. 1)

the actions called by Citites for Adequate Housing declaration (CFAH, 2018)

It should be noted that some of the cities initiating and signing this declaration (Amsterdam, Barcelona, Berlin, Copenhagen, London, Vienna, and others) have already taken particular actions in the past. In Amsterdam, almost half of the apartments have municipally regulated rent and are managed by non-profit organizations. The land of Amsterdam is by 80% owned by the municipality and rented to developers. Vienna runs their housing politics for decades, and today, 78% of people live in rental housing, 58% out of that is social housing, the rest is privately owned, but often regulated. (Cígr et al., 2018) On the other side, Barcelona lacks these long-lasting politics, and its mayor has decided to take strict actions against multiple threats, such as long-vacant property, which is going to be fined, if not rented out (O’Sullivan, 2020).

TACTICAL URBANISM

Many cities already include forms of co-housing into their housing politics for cynical and logical reasons - co-housing projects often save the state money by cheaply tackling contemporary urban issues. These projects are then influenced by the state, the market, and the communities, during different phases of processes, and it is often challenging to find a functioning balance of state influence and autonomy. While the Nordic countries have a long tradition in co-housing, the legislative, financial, and political innovations have long been observed in Germany. Hamburg sells land to initiatives for market prices but is willing to postpone payment. Freiburg keeps 20% of the land for co-housing projects. Institutions in Berlin began to work with housing cooperatives already in the 19th century. Between 1980 and 2000, Berlin was running a program for financial and administrative support to autonomous groups and helped to formalize squats. German Development Bank also supports co-housing projects such as baugruppe models. Anitra Nelson, in her book Small is Necessary, recommends to governments to approach holistic communal construction through so-called tactical urbanism, consisting of city interventions, to activate the communities. (Nelson, 2018, chapter 7)

We have seen that financialization of housing not only causes a shortage of affordable housing, but also contributes to the physical transformation of cities, while affecting the fundamental human right to adequate housing. City councils are trying to address the situation through greater regulation and are calling for cooperation with local communities. What is the nature of the Prague housing crisis and how is Prague trying to deal with it?

V období po roce 1989 došlo v rámci Prahy ke zcela zásadní redukci obecního bytového fondu. Vyjdeme-li z informace uvedené v Koncepci bytové politiky hl. m. Prahy pro rok 2004 a navazující období, že po roce 1991 přešlo do vlastnictví hl. m. Prahy přibližně 194 000 bytů a porovnáme-li tento původní rozsah obecního bytového fondu s výše uvedeným údajem platným k 31. 3. 2019, tak můžeme konstatovat, že v období 1991-2019 se obecní bytový fond v rámci Prahy zredukoval o 84 %. Z grafu č. 4, který na základě kompilace z různých zdrojů uvádí vývoj počtu obecních bytů v průběhu období 1991-2019, vyplývá, že v absolutním vyjádření byly úbytky obecních bytů sice nejvýraznější mezi lety 1991-2003, relativní úbytky nicméně byly výraznější až po roce 2011. Jen mezi lety 2011 a 2019 se obecní bytový fond v Praze zredukoval o více než polovinu. GRAF

ÝVOJ POČTU OBECNÍCH BYTŮ V P RAZE

(1991-2019)

projektů a v důsledku stále probíhající privatizace tak tedy prozatím není úbytek obecních a potenciálně finančně dostupných nájemních bytů nijak kompenzován.

Fig. 04 Development of the number of municipal flats in Prague (Neměc, 2019, a, p. 12)

Z výše uvedeného grafu č. 4 je tedy zřejmé, že privatizace obecních bytů představuje v rámci Prahy dlouhodobý transformační proces, jehož reálný konec je stále v nedohlednu, a to i přes určité změny, které jsou v posledním období patrné alespoň v deklaratorní rovině. Například ve schváleném Strategickém plánu hl. m. Prahy (Aktualizace 2016) bylo v části 1.1.C Dostupné bydlení mimo jiné deklarováno, že bude potřeba „vytvořit nové systémové nástroje bytové politiky za účelem zajištění dostatečné nabídky krizových, sociálníchadostupnýchbytů,kteroubudouposkytoványrůznýmcílovýmskupinámzřadobyvatelPrahy.“ Dosavadní realita je však taková, že počet obecních bytů, z nichž část by mohla nabídku krizového, sociálního a dostupného bydlení zajišťovat, je neustále redukován. Jednou z uvedených příkladových aktivit ve Strategickém plánu hl. m. Prahy (Aktualizace 2016) je rovněž „zastavení privatizacevolnýchmenšíchčibezbariérovýchobecníchbytůeventuálněvyužitelnýchprosociálníúčelyasníženímíryneobsazenosti obecníhobytovéhofondu.“ Na druhou stranu je však důležité zmínit, že především zpočátku privatizace - v 90. letech - neodpovídalo množství (tzn. 194 tisíc v roce 1991) a ani struktura obecních bytů potřebám hlavního města, které zpočátku nemělo ani potřebné finanční prostředky na renovace i běžnou údržbu těchto bytových domů, v rámci nichž byly byty pronajímány za velice nízké regulované nájemné. Privatizace obecních bytů se přirozeně významným způsobem projevila i v proporcích bytového fondu z hlediska právního důvodu užívání bytu. Z grafu č. 5 je patrné, že v uplynulých téměř 30 letech dochází v rámci Prahy k významnému navyšování podílu bytů v osobním vlastnictví (z 1 % v roce 1991 na 45 % v roce 2019) a naopak jsou výrazně redukovány segmenty družstevního (z téměř 20 % v roce 1991 na 9 % v roce 2018) a především nájemního bydlení (z 66 % v roce 1991 na 31 % v roce 2018). V rámci posledního sledovaného období, tzn. mezi lety 2011 a 2018, se přeci jenom zdá, že podíl nájemního bydlení klesá pomaleji, než tomu bylo v předcházejícím období. Může to být způsobeno absolutně nižším počtem privatizovaných bytů, ale pravděpodobně výrazněji tento vývoj souvisí s výrazně se zhoršující dostupností vlastnického bydlení pro široké skupiny obyvatel, v důsledku čehož je mnoho lidí de facto nuceno bydlet v nájmu, protože si vlastní bydlení nemohou dovolit. Určitý růst zájmu o nájemní bydlení v posledních letech může být ovlivněn i dalšími faktory, například růstem počtu cizinců či odkládáním zakládání rodin.

GRAF / 05 O BYDLENÉ BYTY PODLE PRÁVNÍHO DŮVODU UŽÍVÁNÍ BYTŮ V P RAZE (1991-2018) Zdroj

ve vlastním domě v osobním vlastnictví nájemní družstevní ostatní own house, private property, rental, cooperative, other

Fig. 06 Apartments according to type of occupancy (Neměc, 2019, a, p. 13)

13

Fig. 05 Number of finished municipal apartments in Prague

značné, přičemž lze obecně konstatovat, že v metropolích z ekonomicky vyspělejších zemí připadá na 1 obecní byt nižší počet obyvatel, než v metropolích z postkomunistických zemí. Zatímco v Curychu, Vídni či Kodani připadá na 1 obecní byt méně než 10 obyvatel, tak na opačném pólu pořadí jsou především Praha (42 obyvatel v přepočtu na 1 obecní byt), Budapešť (44) a úplný extrém v tomto ohledu představuje Bratislava (217). Zajímavé je, že v Brně se hodnota tohoto ukazatele pohybuje přibližně na úrovni německých měst - Berlína a Mnichova.

GRAF / 07

P OČET OBYVATEL V PŘEPOČTU NA 1 OBECNÍ BYT VE VYBRANÝCH EVROPSKÝCH MĚSTECH

Zdroj dat: IPR Praha převážně na základě informací uvedených na webových stránkách porovnávaných měst

Fig. 07 Number of Inhabitants Per Municipal Flat (Neměc,

2019, a, p. 19)

Zurich / Vienna / Copenhagen / Berlin / Brno / Munich / Warsav / Prague / Budapest / Bratislava

V grafu č. 7 ilustrované rozdíly mezi městy ze zemí Visegradské čtyřky a ostatními metropolemi bývalého „Západu“ se pravděpodobně budou v nejbližším období nadále zvyšovat. Důvodem je především stále ne zcela ukončená privatizace městských bytů ve většině postkomunistických metropolích. Situaci v Praze jsme již detailně popsali v rámci výše uvedených kapitol, ale jako další příklad můžeme uvést například Varšavu. V hlavním městě Polska se počet obecních bytů snížil z 154 888 v roce 1995 na 81 563 obecních bytů na konci roku 2016. Privatizace zde probíhala nejrychleji v období 1996-2001, kdy ročně v průměru ubývalo 5,5 tisíc obecních bytů. V následujících letech průměrný roční úbytek činil 2,3 tisíc obecních bytů a po roce 2014 ubývalo ročně přibližně 700 obecních bytů.7 Oproti Praze je tak tedy ve Varšavě privatizováno méně bytů, stále jde ale o významné množství. Proto i zde je ale bilance počtu obecních bytů záporná, a to i kvůli tomu, že municipální výstavba nových obecních bytů je zde poměrně slabá (v období 2015-2017 bylo ve Varšavě dokončeno 309 nových obecních bytů).8 Zcela opačná situace panuje například ve sledovaných německých městech či ve Vídni, kde tato města realizují nebo alespoň finančně dotují výstavbu několika tisíc bytů ročně (např. ve Vídni bylo v období 2008-2015 dokončeno více než 44 tisíc bytů, jejichž výstavbu město finančně podpořilo).9

Status and development of the municipal housing stock in the city districts of the capital city of Prague (Němec, 2019, a)

03 PRAGUE ON A MISSION

FROM COMMON TO PRIVATE

During the Czechoslovakian communist period housing was a state issue. The former government approached the housing shortage by building a ring of modernistic prefabricated housing estates around Prague that still accommodate most of Prague’s citizens. After the political change, the Czech Republic joined the privatization wave which began a decade earlier in the west. The privatization of Prague’s housing stock seemed inevitable after restitution of previously seized property and the poor condition of most remaining housing. Restoration needed investment that neither the city nor the state could provide.

While post-revolution privatization was justified, its continuation until these days could be criticized. Between 1990 and 2019, the number of city-owned apartments reduced by 84% and only between 2011 and 2019 the city-owned housing stock reduced by half. While a pushback to privatization is now starting to be seen, Prague’s predicament is likely to continue for some time as long term leasing agreements run out their duration.

The privatization of municipal housing significantly changed the occupancy type of housing in the city. While private ownership increased from 1% to 44.7% in the last thirty years, rental housing and housing cooperatives were halved. The reduction of available rental housing slowed down between 2011 and 2018 which might show the slowing of privatization, but more likely it reflects the general unaffordability of private housing.

With a certain size of a municipal housing fund, cities have the potential to influence the real estate market. Comparatively, there is a noticeable difference between western and the eastern European cities. Berlin is an owner or shareholder in six companies which hold and operate approximately 16% of the total housing stock in the German capital. Apartments directly owned by the city of Vienna represent approximately 25% of the total stock in the city. And in Zürich and Copenhagen, the cities ensure they retain a low ratio of inhabitants to one municipal housing unit. Meanwhile, Prague’s municipal housing accounts for only 5% of the total stock.

This sub-chapter draws on an analysis of IPR Prague:

Territorial analysis of current development projects for the construction of apartment buildings in Prague [2019] (Němec, 2019, b)

Analysis of real estate sales prices and the structure of demand in the Prague residential market (Němec, 2019, c)

Analysis of housing and the real estate market in the capital city of Prague from the point of view of its availability and need (Němec, 2017)

FROM THE CENTER TO THE SUBURBS

While the city center has a diverse urban mix with a range of occupancy types, the surrounding housing estates and suburbs consist of mostly single family homeowners. Rental housing remains concentrated around Prague’s center.

Analysis of recent housing development shows high activity. In 2019 the number of new housing projects was the highest since 2009, even as the number of unsold apartments increased. The assumption is that this declining demand for apartments is due to the unprecedented high prices. The distribution of new housing projects is traditionally very uneven and things have not changed. The city center experiences close to no construction activity, whereas there is significant brownfield development. Despite the positive number of new housing projects in the wider city center, affordability remains amongst the lowest of European capitals.

This sub-chapter draws on an analysis of IPR Prague

V období 2001 až 2011 bylo v Praze nově postaveno nebo zrekonstruováno celkem 10 720 domů s byty, což představuje 11,5 % z celkového počtu všech obydlených domů s byty. Objem domovní výstavby tak byl v období 2001–2011 nejvyšší ve srovnání desetiletých období od roku 1971 (v ČR bylo nejvíce domů postaveno v desetiletí 1971–1980). V Praze výstavba domů (ale nikoliv bytů!) překonala v letech 2001–2011 stavební boom z let sedmdesátých. Důvodem je, že v posledním desetiletí připadalo v Praze na jeden dokončený dům v průměru výrazně méně bytů než ve zmíněných sedmdesátých letech, kdy byla rozhodující část výstavby realizována formou kapacitních panelových bytových domů.

soukromá (fyzická) osoba obec, stát bytové družstvo ostatní formy vlastnictví nezjištěno

Zdrojdat:ČSÚ Poznámkakegrafuč.1: PřiSLDB2001bylymeziostatnímiformamivlastnictvízahrnutytytokategorie:zahraničnívlastník,právnická osoba založená za účelem privatizace domu, jiná právnická osoba a kombinace vlastníků. Při SLDB 2011 byly mezi ostatními formami vlastnictví zahrnutytytokategorie:jináprávnickáosoba,spoluvlastnictvívlastníkůbytů,kombinacevlastníků.

Obrázek č. 3: Průměrné stáří obydleného domovního fondu a podíl obydlených bytů podle období výstavby domu (SLDB 2011)

Obrázek č. 4: Domovní fond podle druhu vlastnictví (SLDB 2011)

Zdrojdat:ČSÚ

podle ČSÚ zhruba 3 500 nových bytů, přesto i v této městské části ubylo podle porovnání výsledků z obou sčítání celkem 1 655 bytů. Bytový fond Prahy 4 se tak podle SLDB 2001 a 2011 zmenšil o 2,5 %, což je jen obtížně představitelné s ohledem na významnou bytovou výstavbu a zanedbatelný počet zrušených bytů. Absolutně nejvíce bytů přibylo na základě porovnání výsledků z dvou posledních sčítání v městské části Praha 9 (+ 5 149 bytů). Relativně nejvyšších přírůstků bytových fondů bylo dosaženo v okrajových částech Prahy (např. v městské části Praha-Křeslice nárůst činil 163 %).

1.2.2 Struktura bytového fondu podle typu domu

Average age of inhabited housing stock and share of occupied dwellings by period of house construction 2011 (Neměc, 2017, p. 10)

Zdrojdat:ČSÚ

Fig. 09

Housing stock by type of ownership

2011(Neměc, 2017, p. 12)

Ve struktuře bytového fondu podle druhu domu v Praze převládají byty v bytových domech, kterých bylo podle SLDB 2011 celkem 498 289, tzn. 84,8 % z celkového počtu bytů. Bytů v rodinných domech bylo při posledním sčítání 83 700, což představuje 14,2 % z úhrnu bytového fondu. Zbylých 5 843 bytů (resp. 1 %) bylo alokováno v ostatních budovách.

pie - date of construction; green scale - average age in the area

Struktura bytového fondu podle druhu domu se v poslední dekádě významně nezměnila. Podle SLDB 2001 byl poměr trvale obydlených bytů v bytových domech k bytům v rodinných domech přibližně 87 : 13 (na byty v ostatních budovách připadala jen zanedbatelná část) a v období 2001 až 2011 tak došlo k mírnému nárůstu v zastoupení rodinných domů a rovněž také ostatních budov.

Z územního hlediska jsme při SLDB 2011 registrovali nejvyšší podíl obydlených bytů v bytových domech na celkovém počtu obydlených bytů především v centrálních částech města (v městských částech Praha 2, Praha 3 a Praha 7 byl podíl bytů v bytových domech téměř 100 %) a podle očekávání také v městských částech s vysokým zastoupením sídlištní zástavby (městské části Praha 11, Praha 13, Praha 17, Praha 18 s minimálně 90% podílem bytů v bytových domech). Naopak nízké podíly bytů v bytových domech a zároveň tedy vysoké podíly bytů v rodinných domech byly potvrzeny ve většině okrajových částí hlavního města (vizobrázekč.6)

Obrázek č. 6: Obydlený bytový fond podle druhu domu (SLDB 2011)

Obrázek č. 8: Podíl nájemních bytů na celkovém počtu obydlených bytů (v %, SLDB 2011)

Zdrojdat:ČSÚ

Fig. 10

Occupied housing stock by type of house 2011 (Neměc, 2017, p. 14)

Zdrojdat:ČSÚ

Graf č. 2: Vývoj struktury bytového fondu podle právního důvodu užívání bytu (1991–2011)

Zdrojdat:ČSÚ

Share of rental apartments in the total number of occupied apartments

Fig. 11

2011(Neměc, 2017, p. 16)

Fig. 08

Housing prices in Prague are rising significantly, only between 2016 and 2018 prices rose by an average of 20%. The often mentioned influence of foreign activity is surprisingly low in Prague, only in the area of luxury housing is foreign activity above average. Housing costs vary depending on the type of occupancy, where rents appear more demanding and occupy about 50-60% of the average net wage. 60% of Prague citizens perceive housing costs as a significant burden and 24.7% as a high burden.

The last two decades have seen many changes for Prague institutionally. In 2013 the former mayor founded the Prague Institute of Planning and Development (IPR), with an ambitious goal to return Prague to its place amongst the most developed European capitals. The step towards a conceptual approach to planning and development began with by presenting new strategic plans; the Metropolitan Plan, the Prague Building Regulations, the Manual for Creating Public Space, and the collection and publishing of various statistical and analytical data. In order to foster dialogue with the public, the IPR opened the Center for Architecture and Metropolitan Planning (CAMP) as a space to inform, meet, and discuss city planning. Many of these initiatives are still in process while some have become established. (IPR Prague, 2015)

The new strategic plan has been outlined under the roadmap called “Prague 2030”. By 2030, Prague can expect to grow by 90 000 to 160 000 new inhabitants. In order to accommodate this growth and avoid people moving to the outskirts, Prague aims to support housing development in the centre and also build itself. The city will try to realise this by streamlining construction processes and simplifying bureaucratic barriers. Out of 185 countries, Prague ranks 127th in building permit approval time. (CAMP, 2018)

Prague expresses its will to support cultural development by supporting civic associations and initiatives. Support is offered financially through subsidies, preferential leasing of city property, and by reducing red tape. Tourism is another aspect that plays a role in the housing crisis. The population of the historic center dropped from roughly 42,000 in 1991 to less than 30,000 in 2017, largely due to short term rental platforms such as Airbnb. (CAMP, 2018)

PRAGUE 2030

měsíčná mzda 33 852 Kč v Praze a 26 467 Kč v ČR). Zatímco tedy Pražan s průměrným příjmem vydělává na koupi jednoho metru čtverečního průměrného bytu v Praze 42 dní, tak v rámci celé ČR je k tomu zapotřebí pouze doba 21 dní (včetně víkendů a svátků).

V zásadě to samé, akorát v jiném způsobu vyjádření a zároveň i v dlouhodobé časové řadě, je ilustrováno v grafu č. 8. Ten v kontextu Prahy a ČR na základě dostupných údajů ČSÚ znázorňuje, kolik let musí průměrně vydělávající osoba spořit na pořízení průměrně drahého bytu o výměře 68 m2. Zatímco v roce 2015 v Praze trvala tato doba 8 let, v ČR jen 4 roky.

Z uvedených údajů je zřejmé, že problém finanční nedostupnosti vlastnického (popř. družstevního) bydlení se v rámci ČR koncentruje především do Prahy. Pořízení bytu bylo v Praze i v ČR nejobtížnější v roce 2008, kdy vrcholil realitní boom a kupní ceny bytů byly na vyšší úrovni než v roce 2015. Po roce 2008 se situace z hlediska dostupnosti bydlení zlepšovala, ale na základě dostupných aktuálních informací o strmém nárůstu cen bytů v průběhu roku 2016 lze očekávat, že od roku 2015 došlo ke zhoršení finanční dostupnost bydlení. Graf č. 8: Počet průměrných ročních hrubých mezd potřebných k zakoupení průměrného bytu o výměře 68 m2 v Praze a ČR (2002-2015)

4.1.1 Náklady domácností na bydlení podle právního důvodu užívání bytu

20022003200420052006200720082009201020112012201320142015

ČR Praha

Zdrojdat:ČSÚ,propočtyIPRPraha

Náklady domácností na bydlení se významným způsobem liší v závislosti na právním důvodu užívání bytu. Vlastnická struktura pražského bytového fondu je v celorepublikovém kontextu poměrně specifická, a to především tím, že i přes významnou privatizaci obecních bytů si nájemní sektor uchovává stále relativně významné postavení. To je bezpochyby zapříčiněno dominancí hromadného bydlení, resp. bytových domů ve struktuře pražského bytového a domovního fondu. Konkrétně bylo v Praze podle SLDB 2011 34 % obydlených bytů nájemních, v rámci celé republiky již jen 22 % (vizpodkapitoly1.2.2a1.2.3)

Number of average gross salaries needed to buy average apartment of 68 m2 in Prague and Czechia (Neměc, 2017, p. 37)

Fig.

Nájemní bydlení může mít oproti osobnímu vlastnictví či členství v bytovém družstvu i některé výhody, jakými jsou především minimální počáteční investice či vyšší flexibilita. Pro řadu domácností s nižšími příjmy je však nájemní forma bydlení spíše nutností, protože pořízení vlastního ani družstevního bydlení není v jejich finančních možnostech. Z pohledu finanční zátěže, kterou lze vyjádřit podílem nákladů na bydlení z čistých peněžních příjmů domácností, však vychází bydlení v nájmu výrazně hůře oproti vlastnickému či družstevnímu bydlení. Graf č. 10 ukazuje, že pražské domácnosti žijící v nájemních bytech vydávaly v roce 2014 třetinu (33,4 %) ze svých celkových čistých peněžních příjmů na náklady na bydlení. U domácností bydlících v družstevních bytech činila takto vyjádřená finanční zátěž bydlení 18,7 % a v případě domácností majících byty či rodinné domy v osobním vlastnictví pouze 14,2 %. Z grafu č. 10 je rovněž patrné, že zatímco u vlastnického i družstevního bydlení byly v období let 2006 až 2014 náklady na bydlení ve vztahu k příjmům domácností relativně konstantní, v sektoru nájemního bydlení byl zaznamenán poměrně dramatický nárůst. (V této souvislosti je na místě připomenout, že v rámci výběrového šetření Životní podmínky nejsou do nákladů na bydlení zahrnuty hypotéky ani případné anuitní splátky na krytí úvěrů bytových družstev.)

Graf č. 10: Podíl nákladů na bydlení z čistých peněžních příjmů pražských domácností podle právního důvodu užívání bytu v letech 2006 až 2014

nájemní bydlení družstevní bydlení vlastní bydlení rental cooperative private

Zdrojdat:ČSÚ

V kategorii nájemního bydlení jsou zahrnuty domácnosti žijící v bytech soukromých pronajímatelů i v obecních nájemních bytech (eventuálně i nájemních bytech jiných vlastníků). Zatímco hladina tržního nájemného v rámci hlavního města byla v posledním období relativně stabilní s tendencí k mírnému růstu (průměrné „čisté“ nabídkové nájemné bylo v prosinci 2015 dle IPR Praha 212 Kč/m2 - viz podkapitola 3.2.1), tak u dříve regulovaného nájemného došlo mezi lety 2006 až 2012 s ohledem na přijatou legislativu ke skokovému nárůstu

Fig.

13 Share of housing costs from net cash income of Prague households by type of ocupancy 2006 to 2014

(Neměc, 2017, p. 40)

12

PRAGUE DEVELOPMENT COMPANY

In April 2020, the Prague City Council established a new organization called the Prague Development Company (PDC). It aims to engage in the management of real estate assets of the city and to initiate and coordinate development projects on city land, primarily for municipal housing construction, but also for other developments in the public interest. The construction itself will be carried out in cooperation with the private sector. (IPR Prague, 2020)

Prague will stop privatizing its real estate and land suitable for housing construction. The city has defined three approaches to the housing crisis: constructive communication with the private sector, building cooperative housing, and adequately caring for and reconstructing the city’s housing stock. The city is focusing on resolving housing affordability through the development of housing on Prague’s brownfields and the revival of municipal rental housing. By 2028, Prague aims to gain 10 000 new flats, out of which the city will initiate 2 000. Accordingly, the PDC cannot replace private investors and it should seek to launch individual projects in partnership. (IPR Prague, 2020)Prague has massively privatized its city housing stock and has not built new flats for a long time. It now tends to expand the city through a development fund. However, in order to reach the effective housing volume the city requires like that of Vienna or Zurich, it would need an additional 130 000 new flats. The pervasive tendency and desire of residents is to live in one's own apartment as opposed to renting it. But the current situation no longer allows most residents to buy an apartment. A large percentage of private housing also makes it difficult to systematically renovate existing buildings. The city is taking major steps towards conceptual planning, as seen by the updates and nature of the draft conceptual documents. Belief and support of civic agency and the willingness to cooperate with housing cooperatives is a positive step forward. The question remains whether civic agency can be expected to materialise housing in such a paralyzed situation, and if so, what form it will take. To establish a conversation with developers is another essential tool for Prague to gain. However, building more new flats will not resolve the problem of the financialization of housing on its own. In order to open a discussion on specific housing models and their development, it is first necessary to make an inventory of established concepts.

eligible people

social housing

everyone affordable housing

Fig. 14 The difference between social housing and affordable housing (author’s drawing)

It is essential to recognize the difference between affordable housing and social housing. While social housing is suitable for eligible people (those in social need or a socially beneficial profession), affordable housing is generally accessible to all, including low-income households.

In the interest of supporting affordable housing, the Institute of Sociology of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic proposes to approach housing on a social scale and to understand housing as part of the commons. This means that the state and municipalities should create conditions that allow for diversity and protection from the effects of the real estate market. One of the tools is the emergence of collective housing, involving various forms of collective ownership, from whole houses to co-ownership of shared space. An important aspect is participatory decision-making which varies from a flat hierarchy to managerial structures. This approach to housing then generates several alternative housing models:

A housing cooperative is a traditional model emerging in Europe throughout the last century. Housing cooperatives typically own houses or even neighborhoods. The member owns a right to use an apartment and to participate in the decision-making. Cooperatives generally keep rents low and rule out housing speculation, but their actual appearance varies from country to country.

Co-housing or Baugruppen (building cooperatives) are emerging models from the German speaking world. These models are mainly embraced by the middle classes as their realization requires a certain capital investment. Private ownership of the apartments and collective ownership of the common spaces is standard. Baugruppe often focus on inclusion, sustainability, and other non-economic needs.

Autonomous collectives are radical forms of cooperative housing models. A non-hierarchical structure is typical and collective financial instruments such as fluid rents or basic income are often a part. In many countries, this model manifests as a form of squatting, the occupation of empty buildings.

As mentioned earlier, including these models into the city’s planning strategy can create a more resilient and diversified housing stock. The models help to balance the powers of different groups such as the city, development companies, and citizens while offering desirable living alternatives. The housing of Prague consists of alternative and normative models (private ownership, rental housing, and municipal housing) where private ownership dominates and the municipal housing is marginalized. A high rate of municipal housing and city influence is more akin to Vienna. Incorporating the whole range of housing models would be the desired housing strategy.

This chapter draws on the project How to ensure affordable housing? of the Institute of Sociology of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic (Samec et al., 2018)

Fig. 15 Housing models according to the developerowner - resident setting (authors drawing)

municipal model

rental model cohousing and baugruppe model

collaborative model

market model housing cooperative model

The Institute of Sociology offers four ways to revive the municipal housing stock:

1. The city acts as a developer, chooses the sites, organizes necessary building permits for the projects, and forwards the plans to a construction company. The city finances the project and retains ownership.

2. In cooperation with a development company or other citizen initiatives, the city creates a responsible group. Usually, the city provides the land, the company organizes development, and the housing is divided among both sides.

3. The city can support bottom-up housing collectives, mainly by providing land for development at a subsidized cost.

4. The city can set requirements when providing building permits such as the percentage of affordable housing in the development.

How to finance (municipal) housing must be the next question. The Institute of Sociology suggests taxing multiple property owners and the owners of empty buildings would allow cities to supplement budgets for reinvesting back into municipal housing.

Mietshäuser Syndikat is an alternative bottom-up collective from Germany. It is a network of not-for-profit housing, protected from speculation. These houses have stable rents calculated to cover debt payment and a fee toward a solidarity fund for further expansion of the housing network.

Financing can also be secured through so-called social developers and ethical banks such as those that emerged in Austria. Communities secure multi-source funding, bringing together bank loans, indirect loans from friends, and personal savings. Similarly, in wealth pools, investors buy shares in projects similar to shares in jointstock companies. Besides that, communities can generate further income through their activities such as agricultural production or services and education. Commercial rental space within a collective’s building may include kindergartens or office space.

Collective housing has the potential to develop local communities and local economies. There are many established models, however, the Czech Republic is only just learning to work with them and the necessary legislation needs to be developed to enable the emergence of specific projects. The following chapters explore the socio-economical aspects of collective living and their role for cities.

private

building to profit

building to provide housing building for ourselves building for someone else building for someone else

standard alternative - missing middle standard

the missing middle (authors drawing)

1 Prague type - private ownership dominates

2 Vienna type - strong municipal influence

3 Diverse type - contains variety of housing models

developer

community developer

Fig. 16 Standard and alternative housing models expressing

Fig. 17 Types of housing stocks (authors drawing)

taxing

municipal budget

multi-source funding

umbrella network budget

municipal housing

support paying debts

community budget

-direct loans -

- etical bank -

- municipally subsidized land -

multi-source funding

multisource funding own activity

solidarity fee profitable activity

Fig. 21 Profitable community (authors drawing)

Fig. 19 Mietshäuser Syndikat financing (authors drawing)

Fig. 18 Municipal housing financing (authors drawing)

Fig. 20 Multisource funding (authors drawing)