Teply Stan: an illegal metro line sinks its teeth into a nature reserve

Partly this is true - the construction of the Kommunarskaya metro line is progressing, the equipment is already at the borders of the Teply Stan landscape reserve.

Lyudmila Butuzova

Residents see from their windows: every day more and more tunneling shields are brought here, the number of workers is increasing. The construction site on the territory of the specially protected natural zone has not yet been deployed, but apparently this should happen soon. There is no conclusion from the state environmental expertise on construction in the protected areas zone, and it is difficult to imagine how it might look - according to federal laws, in principle, nothing can be built on the natural territory so as not to cause irreparable damage to it.

“The mass objections of residents against the construction of the Kommunarskaya metro line under the landscape reserve have been ignored by officials since 2015,” Teply Stan district activist Vladimir Semenov has reported to the editorial office of “NI”. “There have been countless appeals from citizens to the Moscow Department of Natural Resources, Construction, the Moscow City Architecture Committee, and the environmental prosecutor’s office who sent them to the same departments. Rosprirodnadzor also acted. The activists received answers that “everything is according to the law”, references were given to certain examinations that were not in the public domain. The most recent response from the Mosarchitecture came in the days of quarantine. Again, there is nothing but lulling assurances that the construction will not harm the reserve.

It seems we live in different worlds. Only the blind man does not see that the light underground subway cuts the territory in half. The construction of linear objects (the Moskomarchitecture ranks the metro distillation tunnels among them) is associated with a serious impact on natural ecosystems, leads to the destruction of the habitat and migration paths of wildlife, and damage to natural complexes. We cannot now forcefully block the path of technology. But you must not be silent. We have created a petition on the Internet, we demand from the Mayor of Moscow to cancel the construction of the metro stage under the protected areas. Within a few days, the petition has already been signed by over 500 residents of Teply Stan, and this number is only increasing! Help make our more powerful! The ruined reserve will affect everyone ...

Recall: The Tyoply Stan landscape reserve is located within the boundaries of the South-Western administrative district of Moscow. Formed by Government Decree of July 21, 1998 N 564 "On measures to develop the territories of the natural complex of Moscow." The reserve area is 329.18 ha.

The trouble began in 2015, when the start of a grandiose project was announced - the construction of the metro from Old Moscow to New. The Kommunarskaya line will pass through six metropolitan areas and will actually become an understudy for the southern sections of the Sokolnicheskaya and Kaluga-Riga lines. The length from the Sevastopolsky Prospekt station to the Troitsk station will be more than 30 kilometers. It will accommodate 16 stations, from some it will be possible to transfer to three other branches and the MCC. At the end of last year, the head of the city Department of Construction Andrei Bochkarev said on the portal mos.ru: “Today, work is already underway at seven stations on the site from“ Novatorov Street ”to“ Kommunarka ”. In Teply Stanstation “General Tyulenev Street” will be located on the border of the 6th and 7th microdistricts. The Teply Stan landscape reserve is within walking distance. Preparatory work is currently underway to remove utilities from the site. This is also reported on the official portal the mayor of Moscow.

A protest campaign against a metro line project in southwestern Moscow has been going on for two years. The most powerful rally was March 15th. Permits were sought 12 times - at all stages of the project. The city authorities did not seem to hear about the total non-compliance with the urban laws of Moscow and Russia, about threats to the housing stock, and cutting down squares and parks. At a public hearing, 27 thousand people opposed the project. The authorities, as usual, counted only those who are in favor, but nobody really needs their opinion, they only listen to themselves .. Nevertheless, experts insist: the concept of the project is not substantiated, the necessary research and calculations have not been carried out, the necessary approvals are missing , technological and financial audit not conducted. Many of them came to the rally and openly spoke out that the construction of this branch is a city-planning crime. It is essentially a dead end; will not solve transport problems; repeats MCC errors; will lead to the collapse of the “orange” metro line after joining another stub to the Academic station.

Most importantly, a new metro line is absent in the General Plan of Moscow, but 68.770 billion rubles were illegally allocated for its construction in the Moscow budget. Activists of the Teply Stan district raised the issue of the metro project mismatching the General Plan back in 2015, before a public hearing, having noticed that according to the old plan, the metro line has a different trace that does not affect the territory of the protected areas. The arguments put forward by the representative of NIPI of the General Plan that the city is developing and therefore cannot comply with outdated urban planning documents are at least perplexing. Moreover, the Moscow City Planning Code (Article 4, Part 1, Clause 4) establishes: “... territory planning documents that do not comply with the Moscow City Master Plan ... are not subject to approval, and those approved are not to be applied in the relevant part.”

The town protector Elena Andreeva put forward the version of why the metro project was made in haste and secretly from the residents and why the fathers of the city should tick out at least some explanation of their conspiratorial actions? A shallow underground metro (only 20 meters) is planned to be “squeezed” between the existing collector going through the reserve and the Bolshoi Troparevsky pond. The hydrogeological conditions of the region will be violated, a significant decrease in groundwater level will occur, and the forest, and the pond, and its numerous streams and springs, some of which are equipped at the expense of residents (the Spring Cold), will suffer. Withdrawal of a plot in the center of the recreation zone actually halves the territory of the city’s natural complex and does not exclude further development.

Indeed, at all Moscow stations of this branch, the planning includes the construction of multi-story commercial real estate to justify the cost of the metro. However, in Teply Stan this issue is carefully avoided and even denied by the authorities, but people who have been deceived more than once have no faith. Indeed, even at the hearings, the residents did not participate in adjusting the boundaries of the protected areas, as it was declared, but precisely for the removal of the site, changes in its permitted use. And this is contrary to the Federal Law “On Environmental Protection” (Art. 58 h. 3, 4), which establishes that all protected areas, including state nature reserves, form a nature reserve fund, the removal of which is prohibited.

Not unimportant is the following moment: over the past four years, on the territory of the recreation area, in the center of which the installation of ventilation shafts is planned, several reconstructions, rehabilitations, beautifications and "arrangements" have been carried out. It is impossible to calculate the total amount of work, but even according to open auctions, more than 200 million rubles have been spent on improving the recreation area. It turns out that the authorities, who approved this economic activity, did not know that capital construction was planned right in the middle of the recreation area with all the ensuing consequences - access roads for heavy construction equipment, a working camp, places for storing building materials? Or just lowered the money into the pipe and in the pockets. Where are the guarantees that after the construction of the metro, hundreds of millions will not be needed for new rehabilitation of the territory?

Teply Stan’s lawsuit with the Moscow authorities has been going on for the fifth year and has turned into an “insoluble” task: to fulfill the requirements of federal law means to correct the metro routing, and this in turn means that the general plan of the city, which officials have already been so exhausted that they themselves are confused in which cases it is a law, and in which - abstract art. As for the Kommunarskaya branch, it seems that they drew it - with a broken line through the districts, without bothering either with residential buildings or with the remnants of green territories.

Residents of the south-west of the capital launched a website and groups in social networks, where they collect signatures against the project, organized the social movement Stopmetro. “This is a typical phenomenon not in my back yard, not in my backyard,” says Mikhail Blinkin, director of the Institute for Transport Economics and Transport Policy at the Higher School of Economics, about protests against the Kommunarskaya branch. Blinkin lives in the Gagarinsky district. According to him, the residents of the districts of "old Moscow" really have little benefit from the new branch, but the project itself is needed for the development of the capital, so the designers have a difficult task - to make every effort to take into account all interests. The feeling that they consider the metro to be an absolute boon, does not suggest that it can also bring residents difficulties.

Municipal and city deputies are trying to become intermediaries between residents and authorities. The deputy of the Moscow City Duma, Natalia Metlina, spoke in detail on her page on the Facebook social network about the meeting held in November last year on the development of the Moscow metro. “The Urban Planning Commission today was fully devoted to the construction of a new metro line, which will pass from Kommunarka through the Academic and Gagarinsky districts. These are special points on the map of Moscow - the intellectual pulse of our country beats here. Of course, what happened today was supposed to happen several years ago at a public hearing. And the fact that Elena Nikolaeva took on a huge job - to put everyone at the negotiating table - and those who are in dire need of a new branch, and those who are afraid for their homes, under which a tunnel will pass under shallow depths. I'm not sure this is the last meeting. But today there was a breakthrough - all parties heard each other. "

Ironically, just at that time, another confrontation of citizens with the Moscow authorities began - replies to thousands of complaints came to the prosecutor’s office and the Presidential Administration following the April hearings. In April, only the section of the branch that affects your area was allowed to discuss. Federal authorities allowed to know everything.

“Touching the branch as a whole is“ not your mind, ”the Obruchevsky district administration told me when I tried to find out the basic parameters: loading the line at rush hour and the depth of the metro all the way from the center to Kommunarka,“ NI said "An ordinary resident of the district Natalia Morozova. “But I, in principle, am not against the metro, I just wanted to give more vital information, and not as it is now accepted: first approve, and then see what comes of it.”

If the loyal ones do not stand on ceremony, then activist screamers in the government except that they did not disperse rags.

At the Moscow City Duma, on the initiative of deputy Yelena Yanchuk (Communist Party faction), an urgent round table was called “Solving the problems arising from the construction of new metro lines”. “We want to understand in more detail the situation that caused the social explosion in three districts of Moscow. In addition, today we want to declare that residents of the South-Western Administrative Okrug are not against the project of the Kommunarskaya metro line. The point is the plot tracing and its feasibility. ”

Opposition deputies also wanted to fight the myths that residents could not judge metro projects professionally. “This is not so, educated Muscovites, the scientific elite live in the Academic, Lomonosov and Gagarinsky districts. And these people are able to understand the planning projects for the territory of linear facilities, the General Plan of Moscow and Targeted Investment Programs. These documents should not serve capital, they should work for Muscovites, ”said Elena Yanchuk.

Naturally, the audience didn’t let us down and came to the same conclusions as the speaker of the municipal district of Gagarinsky in Moscow, the expert on technical supervision of the safe conduct of work in industry Elena Silina: “There are two solutions to the problem: officials admit their mistakes, draft new line plan the metro is canceled or remade without construction in an open way. And the funds released by the decision of the Moscow City Duma deputies are sent to other city development projects. ”

Levon Smirnov, a deputy of the Council of Deputies of the Academic District in the city of Moscow, urged officials not to believe: “Why don't residents believe officials that everything will be fine? The most recent example of 2019: the building of the Satyricon Theater, which cracked during the construction of a new metro station. This and other examples were discussed in the media.

Another important point is the lack of engineering survey materials on the new branch. They are not presented, as well as documents confirming the conformity of the persons producing them. In the current version of the project on mos.ru, they are not there either, they are only promised. This is a direct violation.

The appeal to the minds of officials occurred literally a few days before the coronavirus epidemic. There was a chance that in the month of quarantine “days off” that the president gave everyone, the mayor’s office would also take a break to eliminate errors and put in order the documents on the Kommunarskaya branch. This did not happen, the harnessed horses did not wait and rushed through the construction sites at full speed.

Needless to say, that the time for racing is not at all suitable? Muscovites do not know how to protect themselves from the coronavirus infection, have lost their jobs, were left without money, the budget, as the mayor Sobyanin said, will “crack” if you help everyone. Only investors exploring the territories of New Moscow do not care. They hasten the Moscow government, they need the metro construction to go faster, to sell panel cells more expensive.

In this situation, petitions to the authorities to stop unnecessary construction in Moscow seem timely and relevant. As well as directing 69 billion allocated for the subway to other, really important matters. In the end, it is our money, and we decide how to dispose of them in difficult times.