Housing Affordability in Cities in the Czech Republic
While the full effects of the COVID-19 crisis on housing affordability in cities in
the Czech Republic remain to be seen, the pandemic has reinforced the urgency of tackling
pre-existing challenges, such as a consistent shortage of housing supply in cities
and structural obstacles for urban households to access affordable housing. While
the Czech national government has taken a number of emergency measures to help people
keep their homes during the COVID-19 crisis, this report recommends that Czech national
and local governments need to implement both direct and indirect policy instruments
more effectively to shape a more sustainable and inclusive urban paradigm. Direct
policy instruments consist in targeting housing affordability specifically, for example
by providing more social housing to households most in need. Indirect instruments
such as local land-use planning can help increase the supply of affordable housing.
This report also contains the results from an innovative survey that the OECD and
the Ministry of Regional Development conducted on more than 1 800 municipalities to
collect data on the housing market and housing policies at the municipal level.