The previous convocation of the Riga City Council spoke a lot about the need to provide rented municipal housing for young specialists. Nothing was built.
Currently, Riga is planning to build 732 apartments in Ziepniekkalns, Plavnieki, and Bolderaja.
Municipal housing for specialists is also planned to be built in Gulbene, Tukums, Liepaja, Jekabpils, Daugavpils, and Cesis. Yet, for some reason, young specialists are choosing London and Dublin...
The construction is set to follow the principle of public-private partnership, meaning that a private investor will build almost everything with their own funds, and the municipalities will then pay back the invested amounts and the expected profit over the years.
On one hand, building municipal housing for the needed specialists, where the rent is lower than the market rate, is a good thing. On the other hand, the specialist becomes a serf, as if they change jobs or go freelance, they will have to vacate the municipal housing immediately, either moving into a rented apartment in the private sector or into their own.
No businessman knows who they will need in three years, in five years, or if they will be needed at all.
Municipal enterprises and institutions tell each other how they are introducing innovative technologies and artificial intelligence. Teachers are needed, but schools are closing one after another (“the school is standing, but there are no students”). Doctors are needed, the queues for quotas are terrible, but hospitals are being reduced. Some clinics have been closed (“merged”), and some buildings are already serving completely different functions.
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