Residents of emergency houses offered to settle in wooden high-rise buildings

New projects are being tested for fire and seismic safety: they will save the timber industry from sanctions

Residents of emergency houses and participants in municipal housing programs want to be relocated to wooden high-rise buildings. This, according to the participants of the meeting, which Vladimir Putin held in the Arkhangelsk region, will increase domestic demand for the products of the timber industry complex, which has suffered due to sanctions. In addition to housing, it is also planned to build social facilities built as part of national projects from wood: these are schools, kindergartens, post offices, cultural centers and feldsher-obstetric stations (FAPs). Changes made to SNIPs make it possible to build wooden multi-apartment new buildings up to 9 floors high.

Since the spring of 2022, timber merchants have been writing letters to governors and the government in the hope of drawing the attention of the authorities to their plight. The ban on the export of timber complex products to the European Union led to a reduction in production (in general, by about 27%). And the sanctions made it impossible to supply and repair the necessary equipment. On Friday, the answer came from the highest authority: Vladimir Putin went with an inspection to the Arkhangelsk region to personally check how things are in the North-West region, which has been most affected by the restrictions imposed on timber merchants.

The director of the enterprise visited by the president turned out to be one of the most active complainers. “If there is no state assistance in the near future, most enterprises will be forced to close, and thousands of people in the outback will lose their jobs,” he wrote in one of his appeals, complaining that a huge folder of correspondence had already accumulated on the table, but there were no real solutions. However, Vladimir Putin did not see any devastation in the shops. Rather the opposite. “I have visited enterprises of this kind before both in our country and abroad – I must say that I enjoyed it. The enterprise will give odds to competitors in any country of the world,” the president said. “I don’t regret coming here,” he added to be sure.

The director of the sawmill, in the presence of the head of state, also sounded much more optimistic. The difficulties experienced by the industry, he said, are temporary – “I am sure that they will be overcome.” But government assistance is still needed. Firstly, enterprises need transport subsidies: since the logistics of supplies have changed by 180 degrees, transportation costs have increased significantly, and business on its own no longer “pulls” these costs. Secondly, they are waiting for compensation for the reorientation of cargo from the railway, which is heavily loaded in the east direction, to the seaports of the North-West region. “In 2023, this is 10 billion rubles,” the timber merchants voiced their Wishlist.

Vladimir Putin also proposed to give businesses a deferment in making payments for the lease of forest plots. But not to all enterprises, but only to those who, due to problems with sales, were forced to stop logging. “People pay rent, but there are no products! This injustice needs to be cleaned up,” the president said, noting that the benefit would not apply to the Far East and other territories where there are no problems with exports. Another 15 billion rubles (although not in cash, but in budget loans), the president promised to allocate for the conversion of boiler houses in Russian cities from conventional fuel to fuel pellets (pellets), which were previously purchased by European countries in 100% volume. Here, however, Putin spoke in riddles, but those who were supposed to understand his hints, apparently. “There is a source of these additional 15 billion. The Ministry of Finance is aware of this. We talked and discussed these possibilities. I ask you to use this source,” the GDP said without calling a spade a spade.

However, the main salvation of the timber industry complex should be the all-Russian wooden construction. According to Putin, as part of the national projects, a large number of social facilities are being built – kindergartens, schools, first aid stations, cultural centers, post offices – and many of them can be built according to standard designs not from concrete, but from wood. The authorities see housing construction as another equally powerful consumer of wood. Moreover, not only individual, but also multi-apartment. The head of the Ministry of Construction, Irek Fayzullin, said that changes had already been made to the SNIPs, allowing the construction of standard 4-storey houses (and two pilot houses have already been built in the Vologda Oblast). And projects of 9 storey residential buildings are currently being tested for fire and seismic safety and will soon be available for use.

However, judging by the speeches of officials and Vladimir Putin himself, the authorities doubt that the Russians will want to buy such housing. Thus, Deputy Prime Minister Denis Manturov said that scaling up typical wooden projects is expedient where the government is the initiator of the construction. And Mr. Fayzullin pointed out that even when building individual houses, only a quarter of Russians choose wood as a material. As a result, Vladimir Putin ordered the use of these technologies in the framework of municipal housing programs. “Already this year, low-rise prefabricated wooden houses should be included in the emergency housing resettlement program. This can become a convenient and effective solution for a number of regions,” the president is sure.