- Статьи
- Society
- To honor the obstinate: how Novosibirsk residents protect a quiet neighborhood from high-rise buildings
To honor the obstinate: how Novosibirsk residents protect a quiet neighborhood from high-rise buildings
In Novosibirsk, residents of house No. 29 on 2nd Shevtsova Street accused a potential developer of the area of destroying the foundation of the building. This is done ostensibly so that the house can be declared an emergency and the implementation of the integrated territory development project can begin. Previously, this building had already been recognized as life—threatening, but the owners, through the court, achieved the cancellation of this decision, and at the same time, a criminal case on falsification of expertise. Izvestia investigated why there was such a fierce struggle around several small houses in Novosibirsk.
The story of the struggle for the house
Recently, residents of building No. 29 noticed how construction debris began to be removed from one of the apartments on the ground floor. Through the windows of the apartment, they saw a dismantled floor and huge pits.
— We immediately informed the investigator about this. A few days later, a search was conducted, which showed that holes had indeed been dug there and part of the foundation had been dismantled from one of them, and a hole was gaping out," Tatyana Volgina, a resident of the house, told Izvestia. — Now we are just horrified that these people have arbitrarily started destroying an apartment building.
The SU IC in the Novosibirsk region confirmed to Izvestia that they had traveled to this address at the request of residents and conducted an inspection. The investigative department refused to talk about its results.
This strange incident has a long history. The apartment in which the foundation pits were dug, according to the residents of the house, is registered to Alexey Burika, an assistant to Ilya Polyakov, deputy of the Legislative Assembly of the Novosibirsk region. He is the owner of the Polyakov Group of Companies construction company and its subsidiary, OOO SZ First. The incident occurred shortly after the residents won an appeal in court, where they argued that the house was not an emergency and could not be demolished.
The fact is that the area bounded by Airport, 1st Shevtsova, 2nd Shevtsova and George Kolonda Streets was included in the list of integrated territorial development sites in Novosibirsk several years ago. Polyakov Group is already building Novatori residential complex, high-rise buildings from 11 to 25 floors, next to this site. The houses on 1st and 2nd Shevtsova streets are the exact opposite of this complex: several two-storey houses, a very quiet area. The buildings were built back in the late 1950s. They were going to demolish them in order to free up the territory for the KRT.
Shortly after the construction of the skyscrapers began, residents of Shevtsova Street were invited to a meeting by Ilya Polyakov's assistant and told that the area would be resettled, as it fell into the KRT zone. By the winter of 2023, residents were informed that house No. 29, as well as three other buildings on 1st and 2nd Shevtsova Streets, had been declared an emergency and was subject to demolition. The examination was conducted by the AleksGroup company from Magnitogorsk. Then the residents of the houses ordered another examination from the Novosibirsk company Melwood LLC. She came to the conclusion that all these buildings are habitable. The Melwood company confirmed to Izvestia the fact of this examination and the conclusions voiced by the residents. AleksGroup did not respond to questions.
In January 2024, the Investigative Committee opened a criminal case in connection with the possibility of a deliberately false conclusion made by AleksGroup LLC. The Investigative Committee of the Novosibirsk Region informed Izvestia that the case was still under investigation, and did not disclose any details.
— We are 100% sure that our house is not an emergency and fully habitable, — Tatiana Volgina emphasized in an interview with Izvestia. — This fact was confirmed not only by the examination of the Melwood company, but also by the conclusion of two forensic examinations: in the framework of an administrative case in the Central District Court of Novosibirsk and in the framework of a criminal case in the Investigative Committee. The court's decision that the house is not an emergency has already entered into force.
The decision of the Central District Court of Novosibirsk is available to Izvestia. A class action lawsuit against the mayor's office demanding that the decision to declare the building an emergency be declared illegal was filed by eight residents of house No. 29 (there are 10 apartments in the house). Another resident of the house, Burika A.Y., appears in the court decision. It was he, the document says, who submitted an application for recognition of the building as an emergency.
Why did the developer buy the apartments
According to Tatiana Volgina, Polyakov's representatives bought an apartment in each of the disputed houses. In one of them, as already reported, they allegedly made a tunnel to destroy the foundation. According to local residents, the other one, belonging to one of the deputy's representatives, is linked to the story of an attempted rape of a schoolgirl by a migrant in September 2024. The girl was recaptured, and the migrant was detained. But, according to local residents, this man lived in an apartment belonging to Ilya Polyakov's wife, and worked at a nearby construction site of OOO NZ "First".
Izvestia asked Ilya Polyakov to comment on these allegations, but at the time of publication, the deputy did not respond to questions.
At the same time, he confirmed that his people actually own apartments in these buildings.
"Previously, we bought apartments here from those who wanted to move out of dilapidated housing as soon as possible," he told Izvestia. — It was more social than commercial work. I am a deputy representing the residents of these territories. Since 2020, we have been receiving complaints from residents of dilapidated barracks about the uncertainty of the settlement dates. We helped someone, assuming that in the future we will be able to participate in the KRT project and justify the cost of the purchase. But for more than a year now, all this work has been put on hold, because it is unclear whether this project will be implemented at all.
He also confirmed the fact that, with the participation of Polyakov Group of Companies, AleksGroup was selected to conduct an examination of buildings for accidents.
— We were guided by similar contracts they have already executed. AleksGroup has performed work for Novosibirsk City Hall many times, and it seemed to us to be a sufficient recommendation," said Ilya Polyakov. — For us, only their conclusions were important — whether the house was in an emergency or not.
Earlier in the media, the deputy explained the resistance of local residents by the fact that "troublemakers want a lot of money for their real estate, setting a price higher than luxury new buildings are currently being sold in that location." However, Tatiana Volgina emphasizes that the residents did not agree to move out of the house at all.
— We have lived here for many years, we are friends with the neighbors, our children go to local schools and kindergartens. It doesn't matter what conditions of resettlement someone can or wants to offer. We want to live where we have decided, and no one has the right to decide for us," she stressed.
Ilya Polyakov told Izvestia that "of the several dozen dilapidated houses, the residents of two are opposed to the implementation of the integrated development project of the territory." He believes that some of them want to sell their apartments as expensively as possible, but admits that there are those who categorically refuse to even consider the possibility of moving to another area.
— Someone is just afraid of an unpredictable development of events. The CRT mechanism is new for Novosibirsk, there are few successful experiments, and people have a lot of groundless fears," the deputy said.
Ilya Polyakov emphasizes that if the CRT does take place, then the competition for its implementation will be open and whoever wins it will "bargain with residents for the cost of apartments."
— The land in the area of the old airport looks attractive, and I think a lot of developers will want to compete for it. But now, against the background of active protests by some residents, this looks like a very uncertain and dubious prospect," he said.
And the mayoralty of the city told Izvestia that a decision on the implementation of the CRT in the specified area is possible only after the buildings are recognized as emergency and subject to demolition. Svetlana Razvorotneva, deputy chairman of the State Duma Committee on Construction and Housing and Communal Services, explained that houses that are not recognized as emergency are included in emergency programs only by decision of the general meeting of owners.
Why is there a lot of controversy around the CRT
The Federal Law on Integrated Territorial Development was adopted at the end of 2020. This is a mechanism for demolishing houses of typical buildings from 1950-1970, mainly Khrushchev buildings. Each region had to establish regional regulations in order for the mechanism to operate on its territory.
According to the monitoring of the practices of regulation and implementation of CRT projects in the subjects of the Russian Federation, which was conducted by the Institute of Urban Economics Foundation last year, only 43 regions for 2024 adopted regulatory legal acts to resolve this issue at the regional level. Moreover, for example, in St. Petersburg, the law was approved, but at the request of residents, it was suspended until 2026. The mechanism has taken root in Moscow: currently, 302 CRT projects with a total area of about 4.2 thousand hectares are at various stages of development and implementation in the capital, Oleg Filippov, chairman of the construction committee of Opora Rossii — Moscow, told Izvestia.
Conflicts around the CRT occur in different regions. So, in Tyumen in 2022, residents of the Staraya Zatoka district categorically refused to move to new houses from residential housing, and the CRT project was discontinued. Protests took place in Krasnoyarsk, Arkhangelsk, etc. Tatiana Polidi, Vice President of the Institute of Urban Economics and director of the Real Estate Market department, told Izvestia that disputes occur most often due to the fact that two important issues have not been resolved.
First, it is the choice of a territory for the CRT. Its boundaries should depend on the location of emergency or dilapidated residential buildings there, and the requirements for substantiating the boundaries of these territories and including other facilities in them are set by regional authorities. However, Oleg Filippov notes, so far the criteria for including a land plot in the integrated development of a territory often turn out to be opaque.
Secondly, there are questions about guarantees for the owners of the resettled real estate.
— The federal law does not strictly and fully protect homeowners in terms of obtaining sufficient benefits from participating in the CRT, whether in cash or in kind, — said Tatiana Polidi. — As of March 2024, only 21 subjects of the Russian Federation have legislatively established a guarantee for the provision of equivalent residential premises to apartment owners in dilapidated residential buildings. If this guarantee is not provided, people are offered housing that is equal in value to their existing old housing, and with this money it is impossible to buy a new apartment of the same size.
It is even possible for owners of residential housing to withdraw their homes for state or municipal needs, which "does not ensure either economic or social justice," she says.
However, work is underway to improve the legislation, Oleg Filippov notes. So, in February, the State Duma considered in the first reading a draft law on the protection of citizens' rights in the implementation of housing development projects, which provides for new guarantees for owners of houses that have been resettled.
Nevertheless, CT remains for many "almost the only way to improve their living conditions," Svetlana Razvorotneva emphasizes.
— This is an opportunity to attract businesses to relocate citizens. Theoretically, everyone should win. But the whole question, of course, is who implements these projects and how," the State Duma deputy summed up.
Переведено сервисом «Яндекс Переводчик»
