Ten years of housing estate rehabilitation in Budapest 113 Hungarian Geographical Bulletin 62 (1) (2013) 113–120. Ten years of housing estate rehabilitation in Budapest Balázs SZABÓ1 Abstract At the turn of the millennium about one third of the inhabitants of Budapest lived at housing estates. Since then this rate has slightly declined because of new constructions. Demographic trends have also contributed to the decrease of the share of population living on housing estates. The rate of ageing is especially high in case of the older hous- ing estates, nevertheless, the share of the families with children has still remained above average. The rehabilitation of large housing estates seems to be the best way to avoid their demographic erosion and social decline. This paper explores the rehabilitation initiatives carried out in Budapest in the last decade, with special att ention to their outcomes, and their eff ects. We also examine whether renovations resulted in some new socio-spatial diff erentiations at large housing estates. Keywords: large housing estate, rehabilitation, segregation, Budapest Introduction The fall of state-socialism drastically changed the position of large housing estates on the overall housing markets and the social composition of their inhabitants. Housing estates were not at all socially homogeneous even during communism, their prestige varied already in the time of their construction and the change of regime also brought about further diff erentiation. One of the main factors behind these changes was the privatisation of housing when the share of owner occupied fl ats increased from 50% to 93% just over a decade, between 1990 and 2001 (Népszámlálás, 2001). The majority of housing estates became the losers of the housing pri- vatisation. Only the ‘elite’ housing estates built in the 1980s could keep their 1 Geographical Institute, Research Centre for Astronomy and Earth Sciences, Hungarian Academy of Sciences. H-1112 Budapest, Budaörsi út 45. E-mail: szabo.balazs@csfk .mta.hu 114 position on the housing market (Kovács, Z. and Douglas, M. 2004).2 The high level of comfort was one of the main advantages of panel dwellings before 1990. That very same feature became a disadvantage in the following decade due to the rapid rise of housing costs, especially energy costs (Egedy, T. 2000). Aft er privatisation the new owners living at large housing estates found them- selves in a new situation: the value of fl ats in pre-fabricated houses declined, while the costs of maintenance drastically increased. As a consequence, the lower-status residents of housing estates oft en became trapped: they could not sell their fl ats or buy another one of similar quality; thus their housing career ended (Hegedüs, J. and Tosics, I. 1998). The most problematic part of the rising housing costs is connected with the central heating and the insuffi cient insulation of the houses (Egedy, T. 2003), thus, rehabilitation programmes were targeted to off er a solution to this problem. Some support encouraging and facilitating the application of en- ergy saving methods became available already in 1997. The fi rst governmental program (called “Panelprogram”) was launched in 2001, however, the highest share of the rehabilitation was implemented only aft er 2004 (Egedy, T. 2006). One of the main social consequences of the rehabilitation was the improvement of the residential satisfaction of inhabitants (Kovács, Z. and Herpai, T. 2011). The residents of renovated houses were very satisfi ed with the bett er insulation, the lower level of noise and the lower costs of heating, besides, the aesthetic view and the higher market value of dwellings were also important aspects. The diff erence between the satisfaction of residents became signifi cant in the renovated and non-renovated houses but it has not yet aff ected the residential mobility of dwellers. Up to now, we have litt le information about the renovation of large housing estates in Budapest, let alone its physical results and social conse- quences. This was the motivation of our research project, which aimed to scrutinize this aspect of urban rehabilitation. As the fi rst step, we carried out a survey on large housing estates in Budapest with a focus on their present conditions and possible renovation eff orts that have been carried out. 2 It must be noted that housing estates do not represent the bott om of the Budapest housing market. There are several less prestigious segments of it, namely the most deteriorated 80–100 years old tenement blocks in certain inner-city quarters, the old working class estates in the transition zone and some peripheral neighbourhoods with family houses of low comfort level. 115 Survey method and classifi cation The survey of 142 housing estates in Budapest3 was carried out in summer 2012. The students participating in the survey collected information on the fi eld (and aft er on the internet) on the main features of the buildings (the number of gates, dwellings, storeys) and the characteristics of recognisable renovations. Renovations of buildings at housing estates were divided into four categories: renovated, painted, other improvements and under renova- tion. Renovated meant the insulation of the walls of the house that is the most signifi cant investment of all, because it increases the value of the dwellings and decreases the costs of housing for the inhabitants. The painting of a house has only an aesthetic eff ect. It is typical in the case of older, not pre-fabricated (panel) buildings. Being newly painted might suggest a high level of main- tenance, but it does not really change the value of the building. The other improvements included either some kind of partial insulation or the change of windows without an insulation of the walls. There were buildings that were under renovation during the survey. Most of them seemed to be insulated, but we could not estimate it. The typology of renovation is widely used in the analysis of our survey results. Whenever we examine the composition of renovation types, the per- centage values are always calculated on the basis of the number of dwellings in buildings which have gone through certain kinds of renovation. Dimensions of renovation at housing estates More than one fi ft h of the dwelling stock of housing estates has been renovated during the last decade. This is not a low rate, but it is far from the necessary lev- el. The shares of dwellings renovated in one way or another are as follows: 13.4% in completely renovated buildings, 1.2% in buildings under renovation, 3.1% in buildings that were only re-painted, 5.1% in (mostly panel) buildings where other improvements also occurred. 3 The list of housing estates involved in the survey was based on a paper of BVTV (1987) and a study of Iván, L. (1996), but we had to complete it with some smaller housing estates ignored by those authors. As a rule, every estate appears as a single item in the database even if it was built during several phases. The only exceptions are Csepel city centre and Káposztásmegyer, because the two parts of those housing estates were not constructed at the same time and they are also spatially separated. The number of dwellings in the housing estates included in our database is 295,000. That fi gure is not far from the one mentioned in the cited papers. – – – – 116 Since the rehabilitation of housing estates began aft er the last popu- lation and housing census in 2001, we have only indirect information about its social consequences.4 Therefore, we have to rely on research materials when trying to explore the connection between renovation and social status. Csizmady, A. (2008) ranked the 30 largest housing estates of Budapest by their social milieu and the housing prices and she classifi ed them into three (low, middle and high status) categories. Using that ranking,5 it can be assessed whether the occurrence and the intensity of renovation are diff erent among housing estates dominated by distinct social groups (Table 1). The share of dwellings located in buildings completely renovated, painted or under renova- tion seems to be almost independent from the prestige of housing estates; only the share of ‘other improvements’ is much higher in the low-status housing estates as compared to the more prestigious ones. However, within the status groups there are big diff erences. In the high-status group we can fi nd only one housing estate (Őrmező on the Buda side) where more than 80% of the dwellings were renovated. At the same time the most popular “elite” housing estates are hardly renovated. In the low-status group we can fi nd housing estates with poor reputation but with certain renovations because the inhabitants who cannot otherwise fi nance the full-rehabilitation usually try to renovate their houses in other, cheaper ways (e.g. through insulation of some parts of the buildings). In the 1990s several research projects (Iván, L. 1996; Csizmady, A. 1998; Egedy, T. 2000) focusing on housing estates identifi ed some common factors which are related to the status of housing estates. Those are the size, the age, the morphology of housing estates and the developer who fi nanced the con- struction. Taking into consideration the aforementioned factors the large hous- ing estates with panel buildings built in the 1970s by the local councils have the lowest status while the smaller, old, non-panel estates and the panel es- tates built in the 1980s mostly by private investors (condominiums, ministries, 4 In fact, the year of the very last census was 2011 but its detailed data have not become available by the time of our survey. 5 From those 30 housing estates, 7 are now changing their categories, thus, we have decided to restrict our analysis to the remaining 23. Table 1. Intensity of renovation by the social-status of housing estates, in % Social status Proportion of dwellings in renovated buildings Renovated Painted Under renovation Other impro- vements Low Medium High 27.6 19.0 20.1 15.2 15.9 14.5 0.4 0.7 0.0 3.0 0.6 0.5 9.1 1.8 5.1 117 institution) are considered to be in bett er position. Since it is most likely that the very same features of the housing estates also have an infl uence on the rehabili- tation activities, it is worth taking a closer look at our data in this context. The impact of the size of housing estates is neither unequivocal nor signifi cant (Table 2). The share of complete renovation at large estates is a bit higher than in the smaller ones, but the diff erence is rather narrow. By contrast, there are substantial diff erences within the diff erent size-groups.6 From among the thirteen large housing estates (above 5,000 dwellings), fi ve have a high share of renovation (above 25%) whereas four are hardly renovated (below 5%). The age of housing estates is also an important factor. First, housing factories started to produce pre-fabricated panels in 1967, so estates built prior that were made of traditional building materials. (It is especially important because the governmental fund for rehabilitation is available only for the pre- fabricated buildings). Secondly, the diff erence between the time of construction of the oldest and the youngest panel houses is also more than 20 years. Although the technology was largely the same during the whole pe- riod, its application developed and became more sophisticated over time. The technical problems were typical for estates built in the 1970s, then in the 1980s the quality of buildings improved. In fact, the renovation rate is lower on housing estates built during the 1980s than on those that were constructed between 1965 and 1979. It seems that the fi rst generation of panel buildings needed renovation the most. 6 The fi nding is somewhat surprising in the light of the former research results. As Csizmady, A. (2003) pointed out, the size of housing estates correlated to their status: most of the large housing estates have population with lower status, a few ones have middle class profi le. Lower status people are obviously less able to cover the costs of renovations, thus one can expect a relatively low renovation rate in larger housing estates. The unexpectedly high rate of renovation on such estates is probably a consequence of the ongoing state (and EU) supported rehabilitation programmes. Table 2. Intensity of renovation by the size of housing estates, in % Size of housing estates (number of dwellings) Proportion of dwellings in renovated buildings Renovated Painted Under renovation Other impro- vements below 500 500–1,499 1,500–4,999 5,000–9,999 above 10,000 25.7 21.7 20.7 24.1 24.5 13.2 11.4 11.9 14.5 15.4 8.5 5.9 3.4 3.8 0.0 0.9 0.0 0.6 0.5 3.0 3.0 4.3 4.7 5.3 6.1 118 There is also a signifi cant diff erence between the fi rst and the second half of the 1980s. In the fi rst part of the decade mainly large, “traditional” housing estates were built, while during the last phase smaller-scale elite housing estates became dominant. In the latt er group there is less need for complete renovation and the weight of ‘other improvements’ is greater (it means usually the change of windows). It is not surprising that re-painting is outstandingly very frequent way of renovation in the old “pre-panel” (mainly brick) housing estates. As emphasized in the literature the location of the estates is one of their most important characteristics. It is not only connected with their status (Csizmady, A. 2008), but also with the actual level of their renovation. The housing estates which are embedded in villa quarters are tend to be more renovated (Table 3). They are not elite housing estates, but typically small ones (below 500 dwellings) and most of them do not diff er from their surroundings. Many of them were built before 1970, but even those constructed during the panel period were of bett er quality than the large housing estates. The prestige of housing estates in the inner quarters or adjacent to them are varies, there are both high-status and low-status housing estates among them. Interestingly enough, the renovation of centrally located housing estates proceeds in opposite way compared to the renovation of old tenement houses. In the case of latt er ones, the higher status quarters were renovated fi rst (Kovács, Z. et al. 2013), whereas in the case of housing estates of inner quarters the status does not correlate with the level of renovation. The diff erences within a housing estate are not as sharp as in the in- ner city quarters where the heterogeneity of buildings is much stronger. In spite of the homogeneous dwelling stock of housing estates, the diff erences created by the status of the fi rst dwellers remained untouched in the 1990s (Csizmady, A. 1998). Due to the lack of data about processes of 2000s, we have only some impressions about the modifi cation of social composition of inhabitants at the level of buildings. On the basis of our knowledge related to the housing mar- ket boom in the late 1990s (Farkas, J. et al. 2004), we assume that population change accelerated on the housing estates. According to real estate analysts Table 3. Intensity of renovation by the location of housing estates, in % Location of housing estate Proportion of dwellings in renovated buildings Reno- vated Painted Under reno- vation Other impro- vements Villa quarters Inner quarters Transition zone Outer districts 17.1 9.2 31.5 17.5 14.0 2.3 17.7 11.0 2.9 1.5 5.7 1.2 0.2 0.5 0.6 1.8 0.0 4.8 7.4 3.6 119 two characteristics of the housing estate buildings may have an infl uence on their position at the housing market. First, the demand towards panel dwell- ings depends on the size of the buildings. Low-rise buildings (below fi ve storeys) and houses with a relatively low number of dwellings are more ap- preciated than the high-rise ones, where generally lower-status people reside, oft en late with the payment of service charges. The other factor infl uencing the market position is whether the building is renovated or not. The dwellings in renovated houses can be sold at higher prices and within shorter time, however, the increase of prices does not (or rarely) cover the costs of the renovation.7 Our data indicate that the rate of reno- vation is higher in bigger buildings8 than in the smaller ones. It also suggests that renovation can be a strategy of fl at owners in larger houses to improve (or at least to stabilise) their positions on the housing market. In fact, it is gener- ally the only possible strategy since panel buildings are mono-functional (i.e. residential) unlike the old inner city tenement blocks which can be converted into offi ces. Within the group of housing estates, renovation can lessen the dif- ferences between the smaller (non-renovated) and the renovated larger houses. If rehabilitation programmes were cancelled for a longer period, a new cleavage would emerge between the renovated and non-renovated larger buildings. Conclusions The rehabilitation of housing estates in Budapest started about 10 years aft er the construction of the last panel buildings. Since then only a small part of the blocks has been renovated, nevertheless, some diff erences among the housing estates and their perception have already emerged. The rate of renovation is relatively high in some low status large housing estates built in the 1970’s. The renovation is likely to be an instrument that could be used to prevent the declining status and position of such housing estates on the housing market. Achieving that aim could be further enhanced by the renovation eff orts of residents. Completely renovated housing estates are hardly found in Budapest, while there is a great number of them without any renovation. If the govern- ment supported rehabilitation support was cancelled for a longer period, the large non-renovated housing estates would be in a desperate situation, because they are not be able to compete with either the smaller estates with good loca- tion or the renovated larger ones on the housing market. 7 ingatlanhirek.hu/hir/Atlagban-35-szazalekkal-olcsobbak-a-panelek/41740/ downloaded at 01.10.2012., ingatlanmagazin.com/ingatlanpiac/mennyire-konnyu-ma-eladni-egy- panellakast-es-miert-erdemes-vasarolni/ downloaded at 01.10.2012. 8 The categories “buildings above 200 dwellings” consist of almost exclusively high-rise (10–15 storey) buildings. 120 REFERENCES A budapesti lakótelepek főbb adatai (1947–1985). (Main statistics of the housing estates in Budapest [1947–1985]). Manuscipt. Budapest, BVTV Városépítési Kutatási Önálló Osztály, 1987. Csizmady, A. 1998. Housing estate and social segregation. Review of Sociology (Special is- sue) 1. 37–54. Csizmady, A. 2003. 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Kolosi, T., Tóth, I.Gy. and Vukovich, Gy. Budapest, TÁRKI. Hegedüs, J. and Tosics, I. 1998. Rent reform – Issues for the countries of Eastern Europe and the newly indepenet states. Housing Studies 5. 657–678. Iván, L. 1996. Még egyszer a budapesti lakótelepekről (Remarks to the housing estates in Budapest). Tér – Gazdaság – Társadalom. Budapest, MTA FKI, 49–80. Kovács, Z. and Douglas, M. 2004. Hungary. From socialist ideology to market reality. In High rise housing estates in Europe: Current trends and future prospects. Eds. Turkington, R., Van Kempen, R. and Wassenberg, F. Delft , DUP Science, 231–248. Kovács, Z. and Herpai, T. 2011. A panelprogram társadalmi és környezeti hatásai Szegeden (The social and environmental consequences of the panel rehabilitation program in Szeged). In Környezett udatos energiatermelés és -felhasználás. Eds. Szabó, V. and Fazekas, I. Debrecen, MTA DAB Megújuló Energetikai Munkabizott sága, 322–328. Kovács, Z., Wiessner, R. and Zischner, R. 2013. 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