Nezavismaya Gazeta: “New building standards and regulations still underway”
With the Sochi Winter Olympics in sight, the Ministry of Regional Development has not yet altered its outdated rules and regulations on construction, nor has it established protocols for bringing Russian construction up to modern, European standards. The transition from the former Sanitary Norms and Rules (SNiPs) to modern construction standards was launched in 2002, when officials were given seven years to develop the new protocols, But a couple of months ago, it became evident that the new era in domestic construction would not begin on January 1, 2010. And, according to independent experts, Russian builders will now have to follow the outdated (SNiP) for at least another year, which will cause a significant increase in construction prices.
Even Vladimir Putin, who seems to have taken the issue under his personal purview, failed to stimulate the Ministry's officials. During his visit to Sochi, the prime minister once again expressed concerns about delays in implementing a new technical regulation system. "The preparations for Sochi have once again highlighted problems that have accumulated as well as a systemic disconnect. Many of the current technical regulations fall short of modern requirements and need to be drastically revised," he said during the meeting.
"The issue of pricing in the construction industry is a particular topic we have discussed on more than one occasion. We should bring the cost of building infrastructure in line with world standards as quickly as possible. Here, everything is more expensive because we use regulations dating back to the 1960s and 70s. Technology has made great strides, but we still do it the old way," Putin said. He also reminded Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Kozak of his promise to prepare the corresponding proposals. "I look forward to these proposals," the prime minister stressed.
Meanwhile, the Ministry of Regional Development consistently missed its deadlines as it prepared a normative basis for implementing modern construction standards to match Europe. According to head of Russian Builders Association's (RBA) legal department, Alexander Samoylov, it would take the association at least one year to prepare all the necessary documents. Outdated SNiPs were at first supposed to be reformatted and partially used to prepare new documents. But so far only technical regulations, described by Samoylov as basic documents, have been adopted, and apart from them, new sets of rules and national standards need to be adopted as well. According to him, about 150 national building standards were endorsed, but it still is not enough because no set of rules has been established for their implementation. As a result, surveyors have to calculate building prices using the old base, causing a huge artificial increase in prices.
Samoylov said that the Ministry of Regional Development was doing its best to make up for lost time, but that the work would cost several hundred billion roubles not previously in the budget as well. Of course, one could use the Eurocodes, which European builders abide by. But it is a massive set of documents that still needs to be translated – perhaps even for the Europeans who use it. One should recall that the European Committee and the Commission of the European Community took 15 years to develop the codes, and they are already 20 years old.
CEO of Kroyet Alexey Dobashin believes that it will be a long time before Russia establishes similar protocols. According to him, the process of amendment is perpetual, because every year new building materials appear, and each of them has to be described in new SNiPs. Some SNiPs can be used even today and only need to be revised. The revision of current rules and regulations can significantly save expenses, he added, but a parallel review of project and regulatory standards can do that as well.
