Moscow renovation: why yards without the cars are turning into yards without the trees

Dmitry Loktev, Moscow city Duma deputy

As a deputy of the Moscow City Duma, a member of the Commission for Urban Development, State Property and Land Use, I have been saying for several years that it is necessary to create a comfortable and safe (including in an epidemiological sense) living environment in Moscow. Is the "Moskomarkhitektura" and the subordinate institutes responsible for this direction in the Moscow Government capable of this? I, together with my voters, believe that NO. What formed the basis for such a negative assessment of the work of the department, where the role of the first violins is played by the Chairman of the Committee for Architecture and Urban Planning of Moscow Knyazhevskaya Yu.V. and chief architect of Moscow Kuznetsov SO? The negative assessment was based on the analysis of those projects that "Moskomarkhitektura" proposed to the city. She proposed, confidently stating that the renovation, redevelopment of industrial zones and other urban planning transformations coming from Triumfalnaya Square will bring improvements to the capital. Muscovites were indignant at the barbaric attitude to the structure of their neighborhoods, the ruthless destruction of the green frame of the city, however, both Knyazhevskaya and Kuznetsov said that Muscovites did not understand a little...

Seeing such an inadequate approach to the opinion of residents on the part of "Moskomarkhitektura", I argued that personnel changes and adjustments to the course of city policy were necessary. And so, this summer, at the 10th Moscow Urban Forum, I saw a direct confirmation of my words. At this event, I heard the words Head of the Department of Urban Development Policy of the City of Moscow Sergey Lyovkin. He absolutely reasonably remarked that “We cannot make cities healthier only through the efforts of doctors. The decisions of architects and city planners have a huge impact on people's health. The way houses, schools, hospitals are designed will determine whether residents will get sick more often or will become more efficient and happy. "

Domestic experts echoed him. For example, Andrei Danilov, director of the Institute of Interdisciplinary Medicine, said: “The urban environment increases people's anxiety by 20%, depression by 40%, also contributes to the development of diseases such as obesity and diabetes, and makes people more vulnerable to infectious diseases. At the same time, urban space can be healing".

This position was also supported by world-renowned experts. In particular, Mohammed A. Eyub is Vice President and Chief Engineering Officer for HDR, who has led the design of a number of award-winning architecture projects such as the Cleveland Clinic in Abu Dhabi and the King Saud Medical City in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. , pointed out that "in hospital design, it is important to give patients the opportunity to interact with nature and stay outdoors, as this reduces stress and anxiety and helps the body to recover".

It would seem that this is absolutely sound expert opinion, combined with the balanced position of a representative of the executive branch. But, my dear Muscovites! At the same Urban Forum, as part of the discussion of the principle of a healthy urban environment, I also encountered outright misinformation on the part of a respected colleague from the Department of Urban Development Policy of Moscow. Sergey Levkin decided to mention the renovation program and said that “The renovation program was originally built on the principle of Urban Health. We have developed 89 planning projects that have passed public hearings and approved. At the same time, the norms and rules laid down in the Russian urban planning code comply with the international requirements of various methodologies. This is a comfortable public space, and the availability of services, ranging from social and ending with transport infrastructure, leisure systems, landscaping, the number of parking spaces. This showed us that we are heading in the right direction. The territories included in the renovation projects will become an even healthier city in the future”.

After this statement, it became clear to me that, judging by such statements, the head of the Department of Urban Development Policy of the city of Moscow is completely unaware of what projects the Moskomarkhitektura is proposing. No Urban Health Principle they are out of the question. In the renovation projects I was considering, I found a total cutting down of green spaces, with the impossibility of even equivalent compensation (not to mention the compensation that could make Moscow "an even healthier city"). Perhaps my colleague is simply not aware that under the yards, in the renovation program, a solid concrete slab is planned, on which full-fledged trees cannot physically grow. That, in the renovation option proposed by the Moscow Committee for Architecture and Construction, the green courtyards of the five-story buildings will be completely destroyed. But it is these courtyards that now give Muscovites, as the world-renowned expert Mohammed A. Eyub, mentioned by me, said "the opportunity to interact with nature and stay in the open air, as this reduces the level of stress and anxiety and helps the body recover." Sergey Levkin may also be surprised, but in Moscow squares are being actively cut down to accommodate the starting houses of the same renovation program. The ignorance of such important facts by the head of the Department of Urban Development Policy of the city of Moscow is very depressing.

I have constantly said and say that the Moskomarkhitektura with its renovation projects destroys a comfortable urban environment, leading the city to a catastrophe, including an ecological one. Courtyards without cars, which are proudly mentioned by the chief architect Kuznetsov S.O. turned into courtyards without trees. Because that stunted vegetation, which they are trying to place on a concrete slab, which arose in renovation projects due to the parking located under the courtyard, cannot be compared with the existing greenery of the courtyards of five-story buildings. Moskomarkhitektura projects are aimed at in my opinion, not on Urban Health, but on the money making, to make a profit at any cost. In this case, this price is the destruction of the ecology of Moscow neighborhoods. Failure to understand this, in my opinion, is a direct path to a social explosion, and not to an advertised at the 10th Urban Forum "Healing Environment".

Following the speeches of the chief architect of Moscow, Kuznetsov S.O., Hearing his assertions that if the renovation projects were implemented, it would help to better cope with the coronavirus, I understand that at the helm of "Moskomarkhitektura" there are people who do not understand elementary things, who do not understand not only urban planning, but also in the simplest arithmetic operations. How many residents at the entrance of a house can get sick if there are 20 apartments in one entrance of a five-story building? And how much if 21 five-story buildings are pushed into a renovated 48-storey monster, as is done at the Milling Machine? The compaction of urban development, coupled with a sharp increase in the number of storeys and the cutting down of trees, is a path to disaster, to the possibility of rapid transmission of diseases among the largest possible number of people.

It is necessary to promptly adjust the renovation program in the interests of Muscovites and change the management team in the Moscow Architecture Committee and subordinate institutes - this is what can become the first brick in the strategy. Urban Health. If the staff shortage in the Moscow Architecture Committee does not allow us to do this on our own, I am ready to help by connecting the specialized specialists who are part of our team to the transformation of renovation projects before it is too late.