Journal of Architecture and Planning (Transactions of AIJ)
Online ISSN : 1881-8161
Print ISSN : 1340-4210
ISSN-L : 1340-4210
THE HOUSING LOAN CORPORATION'S CONTRIBUTION TO AN IMPROVEMENT IN QUALITY OF JAPANESE HOUSES PART 2: THE EXTRA FINANCING TO IMPROVE THE LEVEL OF RESIDENTIAL ENVIRONMENT
Kouichi SATO
Author information
JOURNAL FREE ACCESS

2021 Volume 86 Issue 780 Pages 413-423

Details
Abstract

 The Housing Loan Corporation had introduced various extra loans and special loans since 1972, and in the middle 1990s, the number of them reached approximately forty kinds. This paper focuses on the extra financing added by the Housing Loan Corporation and the followings are clarified: first, the extra financing of HLC was a means of raising the residential environment level of Japanese houses. Fundamentally, the expenses for construction work to expand floor space of houses, install devices for barrier-free, save energy, extend service life of houses and adapt regionality around houses were added to basic loan by it. Therefore, houses with the extra financing of HLC required to have larger floor space than the upper limit of the HLC construction criteria or higher specification than the HLC standard specifications.

 Second, the extra financing of HLC was a main means of enlarging floor space of Japanese houses, that was a goal set by the fourth five-year housing construction plan. It enabled to exceed the upper limit of floor space determined by the HLC construction criteria. In the early 1980s, the extra financing to expand floor space was virtually financed to only stem families, but in the late 1980s, not a few nuclear families used that. As a result, the average floor area of houses with the Government Housing Loan became larger than the average of all new houses in Japan in the 1990s.

 Third, the extra financing of HLC popularized new technical criteria on housing widely in Japan. For example, the Housing Loan Corporation started the extra financing to thermal insulation work required by New Energy Saving Standards before it had been formally established. In the introduction of the extra financing to wooden three stories houses, HLC prepared a semi-fireproof construction system for conventional wooden houses, and induced to build wooden semi-fireproof houses in earnest since 1993. Furthermore, in the previous year of the technical criteria of small septic tank of combined treatment established, HLC started to the extra financing to the installation work of it and led the upgrade of treating domestic wastewater.

 Thus, the extra loans and special loans financed by HLC provided an incentive to apply new specifications for housing. But HLC didn’t develop any technical criteria to introduce them. Although higher specifications required for the extra financing gradually appeared in the HLC standard specifications, they were basically developed by other organizations. In conclusion, the Government Housing Loan System provided a practical motivation to various technical criteria developed by other systems, and handed down them to Housing Performance Indication System started in 2000.

Content from these authors
© 2021 Architectural Institute of Japan
Previous article Next article
feedback
Top