{"id":4779,"date":"2022-04-06T09:59:34","date_gmt":"2022-04-06T07:59:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/affordablehousingactivation.org\/?post_type=tribe_events&p=4779"},"modified":"2022-04-28T18:05:45","modified_gmt":"2022-04-28T16:05:45","slug":"4779","status":"publish","type":"exemplary_case","link":"https:\/\/affordablehousingactivation.org\/es\/casos-de-exito\/4779\/","title":{"rendered":"Public loans, funds and grants in EU Member States, Ukraine & the UK BRUSSELS, BELGIUM\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"

Description<\/strong><\/p>\n

Slovakia has a state housing development fund in the form of favourable loans for investment in larger renovations (deep renewal), including thermal insulation of residential buildings and apartments.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The Danish National Building Foundation follows the same principles. It is used for large renovation projects and social development plans in distressed housing areas.[2] The Foundation is a revolving solidarity fund, and acts as a savings and investment account for the whole of the social housing sector in Denmark.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The Danish Government is also spending 30 billion Danish croons (EUR 4 billion on green renovations in the social housing sector as the first step towards green recovery[3]. The programme aims to raise the standard of older properties to reach contemporary energy standards, insulating exterior walls, roofs and ceilings, and replacing old windows with energy-efficient ones, to make substantial heat savings (between 30 per cent and 40 per cent).<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

In practical terms, the Danish scheme will cut 50,000 tonnes of CO2 and reduce energy consumption by approximately 500 gigawatt hours, which corresponds to the heat consumption of 40,000 typical apartments.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The scheme also has positive social implications. For example, due to the number of units being renovated, it will help to deliver \u201caccessible\u201d housing (e.g. old-age friendly) at around one third of the usual price. It will also get thousands of construction sector workers and apprentices back into the labour market.[4]<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Austria has been providing relatively stable and affordable housing conditions for decades.[5] To finance new and renovated dwellings, each province designs subsidy schemes reflecting local policy preferences, providing long-term low-interest public loans with various conditions and target groups that differ across the provinces. While new construction is mainly financed via public loans, public funding for renovation is mainly via non-repayable grant funding (see section on revolving funds and auctioning in this chapter).<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Typically, these loans start out with very low rates of interest and gradually grow in predictable steps over time. In turn, loan repayments and interest are reinvested into revolving funds for housing purposes in the provinces.[6]<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

In Estonia, a pressing housing policy concern is the quality and energy-efficiency of homes in apartment buildings. Many people live in apartments that were built between 1960 and 1990. These were privatized and, for the past 30 years, have relied on individual owners to maintain them. In the past decade, over 1,100 apartment buildings have been renovated, primarily in major cities, often with international financial assistance. However, rural apartment buildings have lagged behind, as have household incomes in these areas, and many buildings are now in a very poor state of repair and subject to demolition.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

New legislation in 2018 has made it compulsory for owners to form an association, become more involved in managing their buildings, and take greater responsibility for ongoing maintenance. However, many property owners do not have the financial capacity to renovate their buildings to achieve high energy standards (C) or have a long-term plan for their maintenance.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Government support and rural economic development is therefore still required. However, a key problem has been unstable financing to support effective measures. So far, current renovation activities have not been sufficient to address needs.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

For this reason, a national programme of renovation grants has been provided in strategic areas since 2019, and Estonia has recently approved a long-term national strategy[7] to achieve the full renovation of all buildings erected before 2000 by 2050. This strategy aims to improve the living and working conditions of 80 per cent of citizens and has set long-term targets to increase the number of renovations each year. It will employ state-funded loans, guarantees and grants, new technologies, information measures, and research and development. The apartment renovation strategy is not an isolated effort, rather it is part of national energy and climate plan of Estonia.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

As Estonia has limited public sector resources, it looks to various EU funds, revenue from trading GHG emission allowances, and private funds through market-based services to fund its renovation plan.[8] Ongoing evaluation will be vital to adapting investment in rural housing, as the economic situation changes over time.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

A French scheme, known colloquially as the Loi Denormandie[9], provides tax incentives to help investors to renovate housing in over 220 designated urban centres in France, in return for agreeing to rent the newly renovated dwellings to a reserved group of low-income tenants. This provides shared benefits for the purchaser and the tenant, who will be able to rent a higher-quality and less-costly home at an affordable price. From the investor side, housing costs of up to a maximum of either EUR 300,000 or EUR 5,500 per m\u00b2 are eligible for the scheme, and the renovation costs must represent at least 25 per cent of the overall total investment. The renovation works must improve the energy performance of the dwelling by at least 20 per cent for apartments and 30 per cent for houses, attaining a minimum energy certificate of E.[10]<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span>The German Kreditanstalt f\u00fcr Wiederaufbau (KfW) promotes the refurbishment of houses if they do not exceed a specific energy requirement for a comparable new house after refurbishment[11]. KfW has defined six levels of support for a building renovation into a \u201cKfW Efficiency House\u201d. If the cost and effort of a complete refurbishment are too high, it is also possible to select individual measures.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Financing is available, for example, for the thermal insulation of walls, roof and floor space, the renewal of windows and exterior doors, the installation\/renewal of a ventilation system, and the optimization of heat distribution for existing heating systems.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Grants are also offered for quality control of executed construction works, sometimes in collaboration with the banks of the federal states (Landesbanken). Through the Hamburgische Investitions- und F\u00f6rderbank, which is an investment and development bank, direct subsidies are offered for implementing a higher standard within the social housing programme and energy improvement measures including construction works quality controls. 50 per cent of the costs of a technical expert and up to EUR 4,000 can be granted.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Another example of pre- and post-renovation monitoring that is dedicated especially to social housing comes from the Netherlands. There, the concept of the zero on the meter (nul-op-de-meter) renovation target is defined as a building (usually social housing renovation projects) in which the yearly building-and user-related energy consumption equals the generated renewable energy in the building and surrounding area, for example with photovoltaic (PV) panels on the roof.[12]<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The Slovenian Environmental Public Fund (Eco Fund) was established in 1993. Its main purpose is to promote development in the field of environmental protection by offering financial incentives such as soft loans and grants for different environmental investment projects. It began with soft loans for investments in environmental protection as a revolving fund. It has provided support to environmental investments through soft loans and developed a strong focus on the financial sustainability of the projects it supports. In 2008, the Fund was granted the use of additional financial mechanisms, such as grants, to support environmental investments.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

A few years ago, Eco Fund took over the organization and financing of a free energy advisory network, offering free expert advice on how to improve energy efficiency for households. It also took over part of the task of energy poverty reduction by covering the entire cost of several environmental investments of households struggling with energy poverty. Currently, Eco Fund is facing new challenges, such as adapting financial incentives to meet the new demands of national strategies that set additional tasks for the Fund: larger energy renovations vis-\u00e0-vis smaller renovations, a higher number of required renovations, the stimulation of the remaining, unrefurbished building stock, energy poverty reduction, the development of innovative financial instruments, etc.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

From 1 January to 31 December 2019, a total of approximately EUR 62 million subsidies were paid by Eco Fund to various beneficiaries, namely:<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n