Will Riga be insulated in 300 years? Renovation of buildings has stalled 0 11

Out of 11,700 apartment buildings in Riga, which account for about 30% of the total number of apartment buildings in Latvia, approximately three to four percent have been renovated. This is roughly half the average renovation rates across the country (6-7%). In other words, if Riga has managed to insulate a few percent of its buildings since the beginning of the insulation process in the early 2000s, it will take at least three hundred years, if not more, to insulate the entire city at this pace.

It should also be noted that Riga lags behind the average Latvian figures by a factor of two, and behind neighboring capitals by six to ten times: in Tallinn, 20-25% of buildings have already been insulated, while in Vilnius, the figure is 25-30%. There are several explanations for this, but one of the most important is significantly more active participation from the state and local governments.

In Estonia, the building renovation program was launched earlier than in Latvia and was carried out with strong state support and the involvement of housing cooperatives. This was largely made possible by a strategic decision made back in the 1990s that privatization of apartments in buildings could only occur simultaneously with the establishment of a housing management association. Thus, the Estonians solved a problem that has been plaguing Latvia for 30 years. In Latvia, the ongoing issue is that apartment owners believe that the responsibility for the overall management and improvement of the building lies with the local government and building management.

In Lithuania, the building renovation process has progressed the fastest among the Baltic countries due to a centralized state program and mandatory involvement of local governments in building insulation projects.

In an effort to accelerate the building renovation process, the Riga municipality has proposed the idea of renovating neighborhoods. The idea is that entire neighborhoods should be renovated rather than individual buildings, achieving a unified style and incorporating public space or the area adjacent to the building into the renovation projects.

This approach is not entirely new—it has already been tested in European countries. In Latvia, it is being implemented, for example, in Valmiera, where 59 out of 158 buildings managed by "Valmieras namsaimnieks" have already been insulated, and another ten are in the process of being insulated. In turn, in the aforementioned Vilnius, the city offers to improve the areas of buildings whose residents have agreed to renovation and insulation using local government funds.