Problems such as difficulties in securing land and shortages of public employees and bidders are cited by governments in an Asahi Shimbun survey showing about 30 percent of the housing projects for evacuees of the March 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami will be delayed.
Problems such as difficulties in securing land and shortages of public employees and bidders are cited by governments in an Asahi Shimbun survey showing about 30 percent of the housing projects for evacuees of the March 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami will be delayed.
The central and local governments plan to build 28,017 public housing units in Iwate, Miyagi and Fukushima prefectures in northeastern Japan for disaster victims after they leave temporary housing by fiscal 2015.
However, construction of about 9,000 homes, or more than 30 percent of the public housing projects, will likely not be completed by the scheduled date, leaving more than 10,000 people without places to call “home.”
The Asahi Shimbun asked Iwate and Fukushima prefectures and 44 municipalities, which plan to construct public housing units as part of disaster recovery efforts, about prospects for completion as of the end of August. In Miyagi Prefecture, the housing projects are mostly being undertaken by municipalities.
Of all 28,017 units planned, only 448, or 1.5 percent, had been built in a prefecture and 11 municipalities as of the end of August. In contrast, the prospects are dim for 9,074 housing units, or 32.3 percent, in two prefectures and 17 municipalities, for completion by the end of fiscal 2014.
Of those, 3,745 units, or 13.3 percent, will be completed by the end of fiscal 2016 or later, the survey found.
Respondents failed to specify the completion date for a total of 5,329 units, or 19 percent, due to the difficulty in securing land.
Asked for reasons for the delays, two prefectures and 16 municipalities--the largest in number--cited “difficulty in securing land,” followed by “a shortage of public employees,” which was cited by nine municipalities.
Two prefectures and nine municipalities cited “a lack of materials and difficulty soliciting bidders due to difficulty securing workers” and seven municipalities gave as a reason “a delay in land reallocation and other land improvement projects.”
The Board of Audit, also concerned about the slow progress in public housing projects, examined the status in 56 municipalities in eight prefectures, including Iwate, Miyagi and Fukushima, as of June.
Of a total of about 25,000 planned disaster recovery public housing units, only 14.8 percent were expected to be completed by the end of this fiscal year, the board found.
In Kamaishi, Iwate Prefecture, where 70 percent of the planned 1,220 public housing units will not likely be completed by fiscal 2015, a 39-year-old man remains concerned about his family's future.
With the company employee's house having been washed away by the 2011 tsunami, he now lives in a temporary housing unit in front of the Kamaishi city hall with his 36-year-old wife and 4-year-old son.
The unit consists of two 4.5 tatami-mat-sized rooms and a kitchen. With only a small storage area available, there is not enough space for his son to play with his toys.
Yet, he said he does not feel comfortable building a new home on the site where his former house stood before the tsunami swept it away. He hopes to move his family into a four-story public housing complex being built as part of disaster-recovery efforts, scheduled to be constructed near where he lives.
Bidding for construction of the 40 units in the complex, however, was canceled twice, forcing the completion date to be put off for six months. It was originally scheduled to be completed in September 2014.
“How long do I have to live in provisional housing?” the man asked. “I cannot possibly make future plans.”
One reason for the bidding cancellation was the unrealistic target completion date. Construction companies found the timetable set by the city, to be completed in 12 months, too short.
With an increase in reconstruction demands in the disaster-hit areas, it became difficult to follow work schedules as smoothly as before the 2011 disaster, due to difficulties in securing workers and materials.
A city official in charge of the project is worried that bidding problems will continue for a while.
Some municipalities in Fukushima Prefecture, which host evacuees from the wrecked Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant, also face a serious shortage of land for housing development.
In Ishinomaki, Miyagi Prefecture, which plans to build 4,000 disaster-recovery housing units in its 70 districts on high ground or inland, only 40 units in two districts have been completed.
With so many districts involved, the city has had to deal with complicated and time-consuming procedures ranging from land acquisition and reclamation to construction.
“We have support workers coming from outside the prefecture, but they are not familiar with the area. We can’t even acquire the necessary land,” a city official said.
(This article was written by Tateki Iwai and Shiori Tabuchi.)