Garages in Maryina Roshcha may not live up to the amnesty

Lyudmila Butuzova

The garage owners were allowed to relax. Starting in 2021, 4 million Russians who have still not been able to legally register their garages will still be able to do so. The bill on "garage amnesty", which had been prepared for two years by Rosreestr and the Ministry of Economic Development, was submitted to the government and supported by the head of the Cabinet. Mikhail Mishustin said this on July 22 during the government's annual report to the State Duma deputies, amusing them a lot with the story that he himself had lost the garage due to the lack of a legislative provision for amnesty.

Earlier, at parliamentary hearings in the State Duma, participants expressed concern that the majority of garages under this bill would be impossible to obtain ownership because of “too many documents”. The director of the real estate department of the Ministry of Economic Development assures that the bill allows citizens to count on receiving land "according to any document for the right to use the garage, up to a contract for energy supply" and to register ownership of the boxes "with ease." For two years, officials were preparing a "garage amnesty", the prime minister called the draft law "restoration of justice" and spilled balm on the hearts of millions of owners with just one phrase: "If a person had a garage, then you need to do everything possible to get it formalized".

However, not all garages will live up to the happiness of being legalized. In any case, in Moscow.

“This is exactly what happened to us”, - Igor Volchek, the owner of a garage in Maryina Roshcha, told Novy Izvestia. - They turned to face us when the "garage amnesty" dawned on the horizon. Before that, for 50 years, they lived quietly, peacefully, they did not touch anyone and no one disturbed us. They paid dues, arranged the territory, the entrance, security - everything as it should be, and at their own expense. Now the government and the prefecture are forced to "voluntarily" sign up for the list to receive monetary compensation for the demolition of the garage object. If you do not sign up, you will not get anything, they will just drive you away.

Volchek only learned that clouds were gathering over the Energetik garage cooperative only this spring, and then by accident.

“On the territory of our GSK (7th passage of Maryina Roshcha, possession 3), some people appeared several times, claiming that our garages would be demolished in the near future”, - says Igor Volchek . - They did not present any documents. All this was disturbing. I did not receive any official notifications about the demolition of garages, I also did not find any information on the Internet and in the press. On May 19 he applied to the Maryina Roshcha council. An employee of the Board Tatiana Nikolaevna Semyonova said that there was a decision to demolish the garages, but when asked to provide me with this decision and any administrative or other documents confirming this information, she replied that they were not at the board. With great difficulty, we found a small and indistinct message on the website of the Administration in the "General" section - there were no terms, no order of demolition, no documentary grounds for this event. Semyonova told me that it is necessary to apply for inclusion in the list of garage owners in order to receive monetary compensation. Moreover, the compensation will be paid by Russian Railways after I sign an agreement with this organization on the sale of garages".

Volchek did not have any relations with Russian Railways, the railway was also in no hurry to establish them, it would be strange to contact the company and impose his garage on it for sale, especially since the owner was not going to sell anything. But since the authorities closest to the people could not explain anything intelligible, Igor Iosifovich turned to the mayor of Moscow Sergei Sobyanin: "Is the power engineer being demolished or not? Who! For what purpose? Where is the official order of the mayor's office? After 10 days, Volchek received an answer that his appeal was sent for consideration "by competence" to the Prefecture of the North-Eastern Administrative District. Two weeks later, the prefecture began to shake, an answer came, signed by Deputy Prefect E.D. Kadantsev. It only states that “In accordance with the Order of the Federal Agency for Railway Transport dated January 21, 2020 No. VCh-13-r“ On the approval of the territory planning documentation (the territory planning project and the territory survey project) for the object: Organization of a suburban-urban passenger railway traffic on the Podolsk-Nakhabino section (MCD-2 "Podolsk-Nakhabino"). Stage 1 "provides for the construction of railways, as well as the stop point" Maryina Roshcha "suburban-urban passenger rail transport. The customer for the construction is Russian Railways. A garage facility located at the specified address (GSK Energetik) falls within the boundaries of the planned construction".

And that's it! No links were provided to any official documents. It is completely incomprehensible how the government and the prefecture leaned sideways to the said intradepartmental order. However, as subsequent events showed, they leaned very actively and even took on the role of collectors, squeezing property from unfortunate debtors.

- On July 7, 2020, the government invited the owners of garages of GSK Energetik to the meeting, - Igor Iosifovich continues his story. - Not all owners were there. Those present were informed that the garages would be demolished; in order to receive compensation, it is necessary to urgently apply to the local council. All again in words, no documents, no official notifications to garage owners. But many of us hesitated, dismantled the pre-prepared forms “Please include me on the list for receiving monetary compensation for the demolition of the garage. Signature date".

They say it hurt to look at people. They are forced to sign a verdict on their property, and few people dare to ask out loud why they are being treated this way? Why the Prefecture, within a month from the date of receipt of the appeal from the initiator of the liberation of the territory (if such exists at all), kept it secret and did not inform, as required by law, the garage owners about the alleged demolition. Why, at the time of filing applications for compensation, there were already some lists of non-existent owners or citizens without documents confirming the right to a garage? Why does an employee of the Prefecture refuse to correct the lists, although this is his direct responsibility. And of course, the most important question: why, when the Government of the Russian Federation insists on a garage amnesty, officials from the Moscow executive authorities grossly violate the rights of citizens and engage in arbitrariness?

"There was such a feeling, - says Igor Volchek about the officials, - that they are in a hurry to take away the garages before the adoption of the amnesty law. At the same time, the need to free up the territory for the needs of Russian Railways is perhaps only a pretext. I would not be surprised if in the place of our housing cooperative, as well as in the garage taken from Prime Minister Mishustin, "something will be built". If the property of such people is not considered, then they do not stand on ceremony at all with ordinary owners: compensation in hand and say thank you for giving it.

This is the most surprising thing in the detective story of our interlocutor: not having the orders of ROSZELDOR in their hands, and not even imagining what is written in it, the officials of the council and the prefecture rushed with all their might to drive people out of their place, freeing him for a new interested person. Perhaps, there is nothing surprising in this haste, if we remember in what place GSK Energetik is located, so tasty for an official eye, - Maryina Roshcha, the center of Moscow. And the size of the cooperative, as those sentenced to demolition are viewed with suspicion, may well accommodate two or three high-rise residential buildings on its territory. But these are our assumptions, born in the conditions of an information vacuum that descended on Energetik in the midst of a pandemic. For some reason, it was at this time, when everyone was sitting at home due to quarantine, that the authorities were preparing their surprise for unsuspecting garage owners.

- The huge cost per square meter of housing in the capital and the demand for new apartments led to the fact that the Moscow authorities for many years were concerned about finding any patch of land where they can stick a new residential or office building, and give it to the right firms for construction. - Pavel Krasnukhin, an expert of the Society for the Protection of Consumer Rights, told NI. - The interests of garage owners turn out to be the last and least essential element in this logic. On the eve of the “garage amnesty”, the authorities became more active. Garage boxes are being destroyed all over Moscow. Very often by criminal methods. Representatives of firms arrive, who are "authorized" by someone unknown, and without any permits, without cordoning off the territory, they begin to barbarously demolish other people's property. At the same time, they are not at all interested in whether people have any documents for the garage, although quite often they do - they were issued in Soviet times, but the current authorities consider them "lost" or "outdated pieces of paper." Often people are not even notified that their garages will be demolished; it is not uncommon for Muscovites to lose their property without any compensation. It is a big mistake, I think, that the federal center did not impose a moratorium on demolitions before the adoption of the law on "garage amnesty". This was demanded by the Communist Party faction in the State Duma, supported by municipal deputies and our Society. As a result, the situation around the hot topic has become even more tense, and the technologies for depriving Muscovites of garage property have become more sophisticated.

The last time the Communist Party faction called for a moratorium in Moscow on the eve of the pandemic, demanding the creation of commissions in the prefectures to decide the fate of parking lots and garages. The demand was put forward against the backdrop of another wave of dismantling of boxes according to a worked-out scheme: the city authorities refused to extend the lease agreement for the land where the garages are located, after which the district commissions made a decision on the demolition without court proceedings. “The land is being confiscated, the tractors, surrounded by power structures, drive up and demolish everything. The indignation is colossal, there are a lot of letters, ”complained State Duma deputy Valery Rashkin. The "moratorium", in his opinion, should be in effect until the garage amnesty additionally protects the rights of the owners.

Igor Volchek, by the way, is one of the few who, after a memorable meeting in the Administration, wrote a statement not in accordance with a stencil: he agreed to include himself in the lists for compensation, provided that the authorities prove the legality of the seizure of the territory of the State Insurance Company and the planned demolition of garages.

An interesting point: when discussing the difficult situation with garages, Novye Izvestia had a question: for 50 years their cooperative existed on parole, or were there some Soviet documents confirming the rights to garages? After all, it's one thing when the owner, like a poor relative, sits on a perch, and quite another when you have an advantage in a dispute with other interested parties. There was a pause: the documents may have been, but they must have been lost... And here is good luck! There was an act of November 19, 1968, of the executive committee of the Dzerzhinsky District Council of Working People's Deputies that the garages in the State Sports Complex "Energetik" were built in accordance with the permission of all existing requirements and could be allowed for operation.

“It only says that the property rights, which the Soviet government endowed the garage workers, are legally reserved for them in post-Soviet Russia since 1991”, - said Sergey Mitrokhin, a well-known politician, Moscow City Duma deputy. - The documents are valid, no one has canceled them, no matter how much the Moscow authorities want it. I know from experience that when another muddy story is started, similar to GSK "Energetik", people are always taken to the gun. I am ready to help sort out the situation if the owners of garages contact me. Right now, I would advise you to withdraw the claims for compensation for the demolition from the prefecture, since the rights of the owners were violated, they did not receive reliable information and were misled. All issues related to property rights should be resolved only in court. Do not forget about the selfish motives that are present in this story. The organizers of the venture would like to get along with the owners of garages with "little blood" - to intimidate and shove 300 thousand rubles each. Such numbers do not work with the legal owners. We must respect ourselves and fight.

ATTORNEY's COMMENTARY

Maria Arkhipova (Bast), Chairperson of the Russian Bar Association for Human Rights:

- Of course, property rights must be guaranteed and must be respected. However, car owners have had difficulties with the status of garage complexes and cooperatives for a long time. Unfortunately, in some cases it turns out that the land under the garages is not registered as the property of the motorists themselves, in other cases the land can be registered as a legal entity, and the car owners own only the garage itself - a metal or brick structure located on the land plot. Actually, the situation described is not new and requires its own solution, in which it is necessary to seek a balance of interests of all participants - both the owner of the land and the owner of the garage. The solution algorithm could be as follows: the owner of the car and garage, who has documents confirming that he owned and used the garage, paid contributions for the maintenance of the garage complex and access roads to parking spaces, would receive compensation taking into account the cost of the structure, i.e. e. the garage itself, and that very permanent parking space or parking space where he could park his car and be sure of its safety. Taking and picking up without providing a parking space will not solve the problem: there is a car and it must be somewhere. Of course, such owners should be notified by the developer or the city that it is planned to seize the land and the parking lot will be moved, receive compensation in an organized manner.

If we are talking about the fact that the owners are forced to write a refusal from their garage objects under the threat of lack of compensation, then this is a reason to apply to the prosecutor's office with a requirement to conduct an investigation on this fact, as well as to require the application of prosecutorial response measures so that actions to seize land and garages are stopped until the car owners receive reliable information. The owners have the right to see the project, the agreed documentation, the grounds on which their garages will be seized. Also, the owners can go to court in connection with the demolition of garages and demand the application of interim measures. In the case of their application, the garages will remain intact until the entry into force of the court decision, and possibly the demolition of the garages will be prohibited by the court decision. If we are talking about the seizure of land for state needs, then the owners also have the right to count on compensation and have the right to go to court if they do not agree with its size or the seizure procedure.

Novye Izvestia commentary

In the accompanying materials to the bill on "garage amnesty" it is explained that over 5.6 million garage objects have been registered in Russia today. At the same time, the number of existing, but not completed, garages significantly exceeds the indicated indicators. At the same time, the concepts of "garage" and "garage-building cooperative" are still absent in the legislation. The bill proposes to prescribe a mechanism for registering citizens' rights to land plots in state or municipal ownership, on which garages are located, built before the introduction of modern urban planning regulation in 2005. It is also planned to determine the basic principles of correlating a particular garage and a citizen who applied for registration of rights to it, to establish a list of documents confirming such circumstances. And most importantly, a moratorium on the demolition of garages is needed before the law is passed. Then people will believe that the Moscow authorities have turned to them face to face.

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