Residential complex millionaires is being built in the Ancient Kyiv Reserve

23.03.2021

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“As a rule, all notable cases are done quietly.”

On Saturday, June 22, 2020 the beginning of construction of a new concrete giant became known in the heart of Kyiv on the Old Podil. A new “joy” has appeared on the territory of the State Historical and Architectural Reserve “Ancient Kyiv”, the construction is planned in the immediate vicinity of the Church of St. Elijah, an architectural monument of national significance. Spatial solutions are completely incompatible with the historical environment! This is a fact of direct violation of the law, current requirements and regulations for the use of the territories of Kyiv reserves, the destruction of the face of the Old Podil, “- wrote in her Facebook public activist Olga Rutkovska. According to her, such architectural and construction sabotage in the very center of the historical Kyiv-Podil is a problem not only of the real estate developers, but also of professional unqualifications of the designers of the residential complex.

Regarding the latter, the residential complex Illinsky House river inclusive is a business-class residential complex designed for 125 apartments in the price range of those starting from 1.92 million hryvnias (one-room apartment) up to 4.02 million gryvnias (three-room apartment). On the territory of the residential complex there is also a construction of a multi-level underground parking lot (? !!) for 110 cars, and together the complex will reach 30 m in height, which, in its turn, will significantly affect the panorama of the embankment and the Dnipro River.

The name of the residential complex itself, that is”Illinsky House river inclusive”, is also interesting. The fact is that inclusion in terms of broad socio-philosophical sense is understood as a form of existence and literally means the common life of ordinary people and people with disabilities, the integration of the latter into public life. The very word “inclusive” (British) means the inclusion, the entry of something that objectively exists separately. We have no idea what the authors of such an extravagant name meant specifically, but it will be quite difficult for the new settlers of the inclusive town to integrate into the life of the Podil community, judging by the feedback from local residents.

“It happened so monstrously fast that I didn’t even have time to gather wits! And what to do with this nightmare? ”Alla Zubkova, a local resident, wonders. In general, the majority of Kyiv residents is against the construction. A news about a vandal attempt to “cover” the Dnipro River with another high-rise building flew around almost all the capital’s Facebook communities in just 24 hours and gathered a lot of outrageous comments, both against the developer and the mayor, Vitaliy Klychko, which once again allows architectural destruction of the historic area.

There is something that Mr. Klychko should pay attention to because the construction site is located on the territory of the State Historical and Architectural Reserve “Ancient Kyiv”, which imposes significant restrictions on the height of the constructed objects and in general on the possibility of their construction, because the residential complex is planned to be constructed between historic low buildings, that are located literally 50 m from the banks of the Dnipro River.

Previously,on the territory of the construction site there was a similar 1-2-storey manor-type buildings, these were mostly production workshops, warehouses and individual estates in the mid-nineteenth century. However, as it often happens in the capital, most of the houses did not have the appropriate conservation status and the question of their demolition by the next developer remained only in terms of time and “convenient” opportunity. This opportunity arose in the run-up to Euro 2012. Unknowingly, Kyiv residents faced a “public need” to destroy “obsolete housing” for the construction of modern hotels and infrastructure. Then, even during the cadence of Leonid Chernovetsky, , almost the entire embankment of the Dnipro River was cleared of historic buildings under such a notable moto as”public necessity”.

However,, only two hotels appeared as a result of a “special operation” to save the capital from a critical shortage of hotels on the banks of the Dnipro River, one of the hotels later became the Volodymyrsky business center . The rest of the land went from owner to owner. In particular, the land parcel for the residential complex “Illinsky” came to the TOV with the same name only in December 2013, so in fact 2 years after the demolition of houses and a year and a half after the end of Euro-2012. Another co-owner of the land parcel is a subsidiary with 100% foreign investment “Soyuzkontrakt Investment”, the owner of which is TOV “Investment Management Group”, the founder of which, is the Dutch Private Limited Liability Company “Dv Capital Management b.v.”

The rest of the construction site is located on land leased from the city community and can be formally returned to it at any time. But it is vice versa in the official permission of the developer, which there is no problem with, on the construction fence there is an information stand, according to which the State Architectural and Construction Inspectorate of Ukraine on April 19, 2019 issued a permission № IU 113191091251 for the construction of an 8-storey residential complex on the corner of Illyinska St. and Pochaynenska St. under the project TAM “Architectural workshop Pashenko”. As the construction is located on the territory of the Historical and Architectural Reserve “Ancient Kyiv”, the relevant permissions of the Ministry of Culture and the Department of Cultural Heritage Protection of the executive body of the Kyiv City Council (Kyiv City State Administration) must be provided.

At the same time, according to the State Land Cadastre on property rights and property rights to land, land owned by a subsidiary with 100% foreign investment “Soyuzkontrakt Investment” and TOV “Illinskii Residential Complex” now affects part of the surviving building. On it, in particular, there is a historic one-story building, at the address, 22 Illinska St., where recently the Spanish embassy was located.

Apparently, only this fact has saved this house from destruction to this day. However, for how long time is another question, because, according to the visualization models of the developer, the territory of the residential complex will be completely free of historic buildings. Keep our fingers on the pulse.

Dmitry Perov , founder of the NGO “Green Minute”