DTP of Nauky Ave. – Yagidna St.: the community took over the function of conducting public discussion and rejected the idea of new building

On October 19, 2017, the Holosiivskyi Regional State Administration considered for the first time the draft Detailed Territory Plan of the within Yagidna Street – Nauky Avenue (hereinafter – DTP). At that time, the Kyiv community had many questions about the plans of the city authorities, in particular, the public was concerned about the growing number of new buildings on the landslide slopes of the Mysholovsky ravines. Then the Detailed Territory Plan was eventually rejected. This time, without radically changing the plans for the construction of the entire Nauky Avenue and not taking into account the legal requirements to improve rather than worsen living conditions in the area, Detailed Territory Plan developers got the same result – complete rejection of their plans by the community. «Aktyvni gromadiany» («Active Citizens») wrote about the plans in the article: «Detailed Territory Plan of Nauky Ave. – Yagidna St.: incorrect addresses of buildings are indicated, garages – for demolition and construction of high-rise buildings on landslide-prone soil».

This time the meeting place of city planners with the community was changed – Khreshchatyk St. 32, Department of Urban Planning and Architecture of the Kyiv City State Administration. Despite the fact that the discussion took place on the eve of the holiday – Independence Day, this Detailed Territory Plan gathered a full house of concerned Kyiv residents. Most of them had already known about the plans to build this territory, but there were also those who looked at their personal plots on a good scale map – so that no one would encroach on their territory.

Another standard course of events in the consideration of the Detailed Territory Plan, which includes noting the suggestions of Kyiv residents that are never usually taken into account by anyone, was disrupted by a local resident, a lawyer Sergei Petrenko. Together with the long-time chairman of the public council of the Holosiivskyi Regional State Administration and nowadays an MP of Ukraine from the political party «Sluha Narodu» («Servant of the People») Alexander Yurchenko, he proposed to change the agenda and without much chatter to admit that the Detailed Territory Plan of «Yagidna St. – Nauky Ave.» is not in the public interest and remove it from consideration until the opinion of local residents is taken into account.

This decision was unanimously supported by all citizens present. It was even supported by the deceived residents of the house, which is listed in the Detailed Territory Plan at Nauky Ave. 98. «You see, in order for a new investor to be interested in the construction of our building, and for us all to pay money for our apartments, it is impossible to give him permission to build only a 16-storey building,» Detailed Territory Plan deceived investor Elena shares with «Aktyvni gromadiany» («Active Citizens») her problem. «At least a 24-storey building must be built here. Also we have the territory for kindergarten for 15 children taken away. Who needs such a kindergarten? Let the investor build such a house so that he would be interested in giving us 70 apartments, for which we have already paid!»

In general, there are two problems with this house. Detailed Territory Plan developers emphasized one of them. It is impossibility to build a 24-storey building here, because the land allocated for it is located in the area of ​​the so-called country estate. As for the second moment, no one emphasized. It is connected with the plans to widen the carriageway of Yagidna St. It is planned to have two strips in each direction – to expand at the expense of including the land plot under the house of Nauky Ave., 98. «The community still has no answer to the questions posed in 2017 (regarding the solution of the problem of problematic development – Author), so we consider this Detailed Territory Plan even more illegal than the previous one,» Yurchenko said.

Later, the public discussion moved to a format, the essence of which probably best corresponds to the purpose of such events – hearing and taking into account all, without exception, complaints, reservations and suggestions of local residents for further development of their neighborhood in the future. Moreover, the role of the chairman, the person directly depends on how and to what extent the opinions of citizens will be heard, was taken over by the same local lawyer – Serhiy Petrenko. The decision was also unanimously supported by the community.

This was followed by comments from the community, for the first time in the last 3 Detailed Territory Plan hearings, their consideration had a constructive component – usually all the complaints of local residents rested on the wording, such as «this is just a project, an approximate model that will change», «this is not a question for us, we are just designers», « you do not understand anything, mind your own business», which was heard from the mouths of designers.

Curiously enough, the main problems of the neighborhood (especially for the Department of Urban Planning and Architecture) have remained unchanged – the unauthorized construction and the lack or inadequacy of social infrastructure. Thus, residents of Marshalska, Admiral Ushakov and part of prosp. Nauki collected signatures that they do not want and do not have the financial means to attend preschools, which are now within walking distance (500 m according to the Building code) of the residents of these streets, and a new Detailed Territory Plan does not provide for the construction in the area of ​​new preschool educational institutions of state or communal ownership, which the local insist on.

Also the issue of problematic buildings is still unresolved, in particular, the locals oppose the construction at: vul. Admiral Ushakov, 1 and prosp. Nauki, 60-62. According to locals these new buildings not only violate the requirements of building codes for the allowable distance between buildings, but also threaten to intensify landslides on the slopes, which can lead to numerous casualties.

According to the Institute of Geological Sciences of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, the slopes of Bagrinova gora, which partially runs along prosp. Nauki in this area belong to the third (“red”) category of danger. Moreover, from 1950-60’s the slopes of the mountain did not undergo any capital fortifications, and the ul. Korchuvatskaya, which is literally 300 m from the construction site, is slowly sliding into the abyss for 10 years in a row. Locals left their homes here a few years ago, not even hoping for the slightest compensation from city officials.

«Last year, a neighboring kitchen garden slided to our yard – they and our house are on the slopes of the mountain,» Irina, a resident of Marshalska St., told «Aktyvni Gromadiany» («Active Citizens»).  «It collapsed almost at the very threshold of the house, we could not leave the house. We bypassed all local authorities, and all of them said – this is our personal problem. We took out a loan and strengthened it all on our own. Hundreds of families live here on the slopes».

The situation at the bottom of the pit, above which hang abandoned houses is not better. The Golosiivskyi (Didorovsky) brook flows at the bottom, forming several picturesque ponds in this place. However, the condition of these reservoirs has significantly deteriorated over the past few years. The systematic inaction of city officials to install a branch of the centralized sewerage system has prompted local residents to solve water disposal problems by improvised means.

Of course, there were those who took the path of least resistance and diverted the sewage from their own yards directly into the creek bed, from where the water carries them directly into the lakes – turning the latter into epidemiological time bombs.

At the same time, there is a conditional line between the private development and the Golosiivskyi National Nature Park (hereinafter – the National Park, NNP) on the shore of the first (outermost) lake. The stream flows from this park. The line, in fact, is so conditional that the protected zone of the National Park, oddly enough, again, for some reason has not been taken into account in the DTP. Although it is not that difficult to determine the boundaries of the NPP in kind on the ground today. The perennial green areas are separated from the low-rise estate buildings by a trash rampart, which is elongated along the development, and the removal of which has not become fully centralized over so many years.

Well, once again we can observe that the systemic blunders of city officials create problems on the ground. Problems which, again, are detected not by the civil servants, as they should be, according to the law, but by ordinary residents – they are the ones who initiate the consideration of the problems created and never solved by the city authorities.

But this is obviously not enough for the administration of Mayor Vitali Klitschko. The real solution lies in the people’s initiative to take over the work of the relevant Department for evaluation and consideration of objections to the new-old DTP, because in the two years since the last consideration of the DTP project, no initiative of local residents has been taken into account. Moreover, such an initiative of locals in the desire to help make our common hometown better faced an obvious opposition from civil servants themselves. Why resist initiatives and not solve real existing problems on the ground together ?! The true motives of such behavior, but rather motivation, remain a mystery, at least none of the present “urban planners” could give an affirmative answer to this question.

Dmitry Perov , founder of the NGO “Green Minute”

video: Mikhail Shevyrev

Translated by Daria Moshkivska

Read alco “The Detailed Territory Plan (DTP) as a threat of destruction of the Lybid River was «wrapped up» (repealed) by the community”

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