Recently, society and the media have been actively discussing the need to replace the derelict housing stock in the city. Replacing the dilapidated houses was also among the electoral campaign pledges of the mayoral candidate from Georgian Dream. In the spring of 2022, the Tbilisi City Municipal Assembly actually developed the terms for replacing dilapidated houses. A little earlier, in March, a similar program was approved in Batumi. According to the program, municipalities will allocate funds from the budget, using which, after dismantling the damaged houses, a private company will build a new house in their place, where a part of the apartments will be given to the owners of damaged houses, and the part will be sold commercially. It should be noted that neither the adopted rules nor the course of their implementation provides answers to many questions that naturally arise in society regarding the process of replacing houses. Due to the absence of public involvement in the decision-making related to the program and vague stipulations in the adopted resolutions, there are suspicions that, despite the budgetary funds spent and the municipal property allocated in the process of its implementation, the program, under the guise of public interests, will actually serve the joint financial interests of business and the government.
