Prior to granting the building license, the municipality must set up a general plan (designating residential, commercial and industrial areas) and a detailed plan (defining the type of building). These public institutions were expected to make up for any construction shortfalls by private competitors and eventually were aimed at competing on the open market. The specific tenure of municipally owned housing was intended to play an important role in achieving the goals of housing policy after the war, namely to raise the average housing standard, to equalise the distribution of housing consumption, to restrict wealth transfers to private property owners and to counter housing segregation. While in the 1970s and 1980s, public construction was responsible for more than 75% of new rental dwellings, its importance has declined somewhat but still remains at around one half. The rent level they aim to set is used to cover direct costs, but they are not managed on a strict non-profit-making objective as they provide a return for the capital invested by the municipalities (the share of the initial municipal equity capital, though, has declined significantly over time since many MHCs were created in the 1960s and have grown since then).