All-Russian fraud: renovation is losing borders and banks

Its consequences are discussed by politicians and experts. It is noteworthy that the word "renovation" is not used in the text of the bill: people guess that this is the reason for the interests of builders and corrupt officials.

Irina Mishina

Behind the florid phrases of the bill hides a simple idea: local authorities in Russia can give the right to accept demolition programs for almost any, not only emergency housing. All this, however, is covered by words about the need for "integrated development of territories" and "creating favorable living conditions for citizens." True, with the possibility of compulsory seizure of real estate. A decision on inclusion in the program can be made if the idea is approved by 2/3 of the owners or tenants of apartments. You can exclude a house from the program by 1/3 of the votes.

For the sake of interest, we note that a government bill with similar wording in 2019 was sharply criticized and changed. What happened now? And why did the renovation, which was considered to be the lot of the capital, stepped beyond its borders? Different versions are put forward on social networks.

Anna Babicheva: “There is an insider saying that next year the renovation program in Moscow will be quietly shut down. No money. Moscow's budget deficit is 300 billion rubles. "Whoever did it, he ate it".

Experts confirm this information: "The budget deficit of Moscow in 2020 is projected at about 351.3 billion rubles", - said Elena Zyabbarova, head of the capital's finance department.

What does all this have to do with renovation? - you ask. It's simple. “The houses, which, due to their low quality, were not sold by the developer, the city buys out with taxpayers' money - for our money - and gives them away for renovation. That is, those houses that are difficult for the developer to sell, or they fail at all, are being renovated”, - Moscow City Duma deputy Yelena Shuvalova explained to Novye Izvestia.

This is also confirmed in his article posted on social networks, the author and editor of the channel "Urbanism as the meaning of life" Petr V. Ivanov: “Since the buyers of apartments for renovation are not individuals who may be worried about the quality of construction and finishing, but the Foundation under the government Moscow, the developers are not interested in the quality of construction. They are only concerned with the speed of construction, and how long the house will stand is not important, everything has already been paid from our taxes".

Recently, "renovation houses" have become of such poor quality that a non-working elevator or a flood in the stairwell are just "little things in life" in comparison with other "renovation" cataclysms.

“In Kuzminki, a house under construction for renovation caught fire. The second time caught fire ... In general, they are building for renovation, to put it mildly, so-so. The first house under the renovation program was built in my area in 2018, but to this day it is empty. Residents are not settled. It turned out that everything that was possible was violated there - from improperly conducted electrics to exceeding the level of harmful fumes. For two years now, the authorities have been reporting that they are about to fix everything. But it seems that everything is so bad there that nothing can be fixed. By the way, do you know how much the technical customer of the construction paid "for the identified shortcomings", but in fact, for the fact that the house is completely unusable and empty? 120 thousand rubles. No, I was not mistaken, here is the link. But at least they haven't settled here. And in another place at another time, what decision will they make? If a building with 14 floors is being built in Kuzminki, then in Pokrovskoye-Streshnevo, according to the original design, there were 72 floors. Again, I did not mix anything up. Here's another link. However, when the residents were a little surprised, they reduced it to 30 floors . Sobyanin was asked how so. Here's what he answered . Do you understand something? In some districts, they began to build up industrial zones...”, - Yulia Kiani shares on Yandex-Zen.

The key concept of the bill on “renovation in the regions” is “integrated development of territories”. Local authorities will be able to make a decision on such development and the subsequent attraction of investors if half of the zone is occupied, for example, by emergency houses, unauthorized buildings or apartment buildings included in the targeted demolition and reconstruction program. Well, how our houses are being driven for demolition has long been known. The last eloquent example went around all social networks. The video captures a woman entering a room where the ceiling collapses before her eyes. This incident took place in an old and rather strong house in Moscow, at 4 Krapivensky Lane. This is the very center of the capital, the Boulevard Ring. A dainty place for developers, you guessed it right.

“I've been fighting for this house for 2 years now”, - says Elena Shuvalova, a Moscow City Duma deputy. - The house is almost completely collapsed. The roof could not be repaired! As a result, the ceiling of the woman's apartment collapsed. Why? Wooden floors, they are eternal in reality. But on one condition: if they are not exposed to water. If water is constantly poured onto wooden floors, they begin to collapse. The roof was deliberately not repaired in the house, it was leaking, as a result the overlap collapsed. This is how houses are brought under the condition of emergency. The meaning of what is happening with this house is very clear: from the point of view of modern housing prices, this is expensive land. And someone deliberately destroys the house, making it emergency, in order to survive people, demolish it and build expensive housing on this site”, - says the deputy of the Moscow City Duma Yelena Shuvalova.

Apparently, such houses were meant by Senator Oleg Melnichenko, who introduced the bill to the State Duma. In his opinion, "a common problem in many cities today is the presence of degrading built-up areas that require comprehensive and sustainable development." "In order to ensure the development of such territories, as well as their improvement, creating a comfortable living environment on them, the bill provides for the possibility of making a decision on the integrated development of such territories in the presence of an address program approved by the region for the demolition and reconstruction of apartment buildings", - the senator said.

At the same time, as Oleg Melnichenko stressed, in order to avoid infringement of the rights of citizens in the implementation of targeted programs, the bill regulates in detail the procedure for obtaining the consent of owners and tenants of residential premises: “Only an apartment building, owners and tenants of residential premises can be included in the draft program for demolition and reconstruction in which a majority of two-thirds of the total number of residential premises voted for its inclusion in the draft program”, - says Senator Melnichenko. Also in the document there are references to the experience of renovation in Moscow: they say, in the capital, the migrants were promised equivalent housing in the same settlement. Owners can choose monetary compensation or an equivalent apartment instead of old housing.

Seriously?

Bad jokes and anecdotes have been circulating on social networks for a long time. “If you are in Zelenograd, Troitsk or New Moscow, you will be resettled within the boundaries of the administrative district. You lived for yourself, for example, in Kommunarka, and you will go to Kryokshino or near Podolsk. But even within the same district, you can live for 20 years with windows to the park, and get windows on a railway or a busy highway”, - Yulia Kiani sneers.

In view of the fact that the regional authorities also wanted "as in Moscow", the renovation has already begun to disfigure the appearance of many Russian cities. Facebook user Oksana Terekhova writes: “Oh, yes! It happened in our country and continues to happen in 2 of the most popular cities in the region. Svetlogorsk and Zelenogradsk are two resorts that we have on the very coast of the Baltic. There were 2 resorts. Now these are 2 sleeping bags with incompetent high-rise buildings. Old houses in the same Baltic, marine style are being demolished like dilapidated housing. In their place - "luxury-apart-comfort-prestige" (courtyard-parking, from the window you can wave to a neighbor in a neighboring house). As a result, we have 2 ghettos on the site of the once green Baltic resorts. And yes, let someone tell you that Kaliningrad is a corner of Europe in Russia... This is not development - this is barbarism".

But the worst thing in the history of the bill on "renovation in the regions" is the deprivation of people of the rights to property, to the freedom to choose their place of residence. “Yes, they promise equivalent housing in the same city. But at the same time, the area of residence is not indicated and monetary compensation is possible. In fact, this is a forced eviction. If a “territory for renovation” is being prepared, no one asks anyone. Because for a long time now everything has been done not in the interests of people, but in the interests of construction oligarchs who like to demolish historical monuments and cut down trees in places where houses are selling well. People have been living in their neighborhood for years, their children go to school there, these children have friends in neighboring houses, in the local clinic - their medical history. All life is tied to the place of residence. And suddenly it turns out that the housing is emergency, and even someone voted for”, - Deputy Yelena Shuvalova is indignant.

By the way, about voting. It is noteworthy that the bill was introduced during a pandemic, when all voting takes place remotely. The scheme of such "voting" is well known and well developed. Everything follows approximately the same scenario. “There are no public hearings, people write letters and appeals. They wrote one thing, and in response to a massive petition with hundreds of signatures, the local government replies: "But everything is different on the Internet." The electronic results will always be what the developers like. As for monetary compensation, some time ago in the Moscow City Duma, United Russia deputy Yelena Nikolaeva generally proposed to compensate for the damage with monetary compensation during demolition or resettlement after renovation. It took me a lot of effort to expose and curtail this construction lobby project”, - said the deputy Yelena Shuvalova.

By the way, the point of view on this problem of the developers themselves is curious. "Housing becomes obsolete quickly enough, so renovation is a natural and necessary process, sooner or later it will happen." This opinion was expressed to Sputnik radio by Evgeny Shlemenkov , vice-president of the public organization "Support of Russia", head of the direction "Construction and housing and communal services". Who will be allowed to be renovated in the regions? Evgeny Shlemenkov makes the following assumption: “Investors will be attracted to construction projects through auctions. Companies with at least three years of experience in the construction of apartment buildings, which have handed over at least 5 thousand square meters of apartments, can participate in them. They are just trying to somehow cut off non-professional organizations that, by winning competitions and tenders, are not able to complete the tasks. Any administration in any locality knows perfectly well who is worth what, but since it is necessary to go through competitive procedures, they will still debug in such a way that either “their own” or professionally trained companies won. The main thing is that they focus on professionalism, and not on the principle of "friend or foe", - says Yevgeny Shlemenkov.

However, the bill has not yet been adopted. And it causes a lot of complaints from politicians, lawyers and experts. Here, for example, what contradictions are found in it by the author and editor of the channel "Urbanism as the meaning of life" Petr Ivanov: “The regulation on voting for the inclusion of a house in the renovation program of 2/3 of residents violates the right to private property, which, despite all the amendments, we still have it in the Constitution. Construction of areas for renovation is carried out without taking into account any urban planning documentation. Urban planning analysis is not carried out during design. As a result, the areas for renovation overload the transport system, social infrastructure, communications, violate the ecological framework of the city. The special feature of the renovation program is that it can be used to demolish absolutely any house without any expertise. Among these houses, buildings may not be in the best condition. The new bill says that in the zone of "complex development of the territory", i.e. demolition and construction, there should be 50% of such houses. What's with the other 50% is not important at all. That is, they can be quite durable”.

...The irony of fate is that the senators who submitted the new bill to the State Duma - Nikolay Zhuravlyov, Oleg Melnichenko, Andrey Shevchenko - functionaries of the All-Russian Council for the Development of Local Self-Government. And local government, as you know, is completely ignored by renovation. Everything is decided by the executive branch, which demolishes what it wants, builds what it wants, relocates people wherever it wants, not being particularly interested in someone's rights.

Whatever you call it - renovation or "integrated development of territories" - in essence, in most cases it is barbarism. Moscow is already experiencing this. You certainly won't wish such a fate to other cities.