A year has passed since Elena Shulyak’s bill No. 5655 on urban planning reform, created in the interests of developers, was approved by parliament in the second reading.
It’s been exactly a year since the president vetoed it and didn’t respond to the petition, under which citizens’ votes were collected in a record-breaking time frame at that time.
Despite the fact that our international partners have drawn red lines - the European Parliament emphasized that the President should not sign this initiative, and the European Commission criticized this “reform” in the report - the head of the Servant of the People party, together with the team of the Ministry of Reconstruction, continue to carry out implementation measures of the non-existent law. ZN.UA published a 232-page resolution of the Cabinet of Ministers, which is a clone of bill No. 5655, which was not signed by the president. The price of the issue is billions for future post-war reconstruction. Therefore, the lobbying team sees the goal and does not see obstacles. Including the Constitution.
But 5655 is a mine not only for the future restoration of Ukraine. The state policy for the preservation of cultural heritage must also correspond to the new challenges that arose during the war. That is why ZN.UA decided to study how the urban planning “reform”, which is now in limbo, affects the preservation of cultural heritage. Unfortunately, new shadow sides have opened up.
"Useful" slowness of the ministry
Cultural heritage is not only monuments, but also everything else that is of cultural value, such as the traditional character of the environment with its historical buildings. In order for developers to build something, previously it was necessary to obtain permits from the relevant authorities, which, after checking whether the construction would cause harm, would issue a permit or not. Not everything was smooth with their work, as elsewhere - they worked normally only under pressure from society, but at least there was some kind of protection of cultural heritage.
Everything began to change in 2011, when the Law of Ukraine “On the Regulation of Urban Development Activities” appeared. He reduced the role of such bodies.
“If we talk about the archaeological heritage, which must be identified before the start of construction, then there are two problems - developers and robbers of the archaeological heritage,” says Vyacheslav Baranov, a researcher at the Institute of Archeology of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, “We have not created a general archaeological map of monuments - a kind of archaeological cadastre . We are talking about a nationwide state program for systematic research of the entire territory of Ukraine and the inclusion of identified monuments in a unified cadastre. Our neighbors in Poland began such a program back in 1978, and it continues to this day.
Probably most archaeological sites in Ukraine remain unknown. Until 2011, this terrible situation was somehow resolved through the so-called mandatory archaeological examination when allocating land, but after the adoption of the famous “Kivalov Law” the examination was eliminated. And this initiative 5665 will only consolidate our barbaric position, since we ourselves are systematically doing everything to destroy the past. In fact, the destruction of archaeological sites will simply go electronic,” the expert concluded.
Indeed, Bill No. 5655 generally simplifies such rules for developers. In essence, they are given an indulgence. You can do whatever you want, however, there are small fines. But for large construction projects, these are always feasible means - you pay and no one stops you.
It is expected that the lead author of the bill does not see such risks.
“As you can see, the problem of destruction of cultural heritage and illegal construction still have their own specific “heroes.” And in light of the latest events in Kyiv, when the historical heritage is being brazenly destroyed before everyone’s eyes, we clearly understand that there are many of them. The corruption system has consumed almost the entire country, every major city. Only by implementing this reform will Ukraine finally get rid of thoughtless urban development and restore respect for the historical past,” assures Mrs. Shulyak.
The Ministry of Culture ZN.UA emphasized that they did not support the urban planning “reform” from the very beginning and here’s why:
“When preparing the project, consultations were not held with specialists in the field of cultural heritage protection, and the restoration of monuments is equated to the construction sector. Also, this law completely changed the system of decision-making in the field of cultural heritage protection and categorically demanded that appropriate changes be made to the law “On the Protection of Cultural Heritage.” That is, urban planning legislation would replace legislative norms for the protection of cultural heritage,” explains Natalya Voitseshchuk, head of the department of permitting and consent documentation of the relevant ministry.
Comments on the text of the legislative initiative from the Ministry of Culture, as well as the proposal to create a working group to finalize the bill, were essentially ignored. And now MCIP notes that it sees attempts to implement the planned “reform” on the part of the new Ministry of Infrastructure, which is headed by Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Kubrakov.
In fact, in order to be able to protect cultural heritage, one must understand its limits. And here our situation is catastrophic. For example, the state has not yet even developed regimes for using the buffer zone of the World Heritage Site “Historic Center of Lviv”. The situation is the same in Kyiv, where the entire center is an archaeological monument - the city of Yaroslav, the city of Vladimir. All this is listed as communal property land, and the city council can distribute it. One of the loudest scandals is the attempt to build a shopping center where streets from the times of Kievan Rus were found - on Poshtovaya Square.
Such boundaries and monuments would need to be entered into an electronic system - they should be in the State Land Cadastre. Then it would be possible to easily automate the verification of the legality of construction. And this should have been done before January 1, 2023, in accordance with the transitional provisions of one of the previous reforms - Law No. 1423-IX on the deregulation of land relations.
But the government failed to cope with this - all the facilities are still not here, although it is already the end of the year. The fact is that in order to accomplish this, very serious funding is needed, and it would have to be approved by the Verkhovna Rada. We can even talk about several billion hryvnias, because this, among other things, involves the development of hundreds of thousands of land management projects and geodetic measurements of each monument building. A week ago, by the way, the Ministry of Culture said that it plans to receive about 250 million UAH from the casino to preserve the monuments.
But problems will arise not only with cultural heritage. The same applies to natural reserve objects. For example, it took seven years to implement the presidential decree on the expansion of the Goloseevsky National Park at the expense of the Belichansky Forest. Only after the state allocated money for a specific object and activists controlled every step of drawing the border into reality, this object appeared on the cadastral map. But there are a lot of natural reserve fund objects, as well as cultural heritage objects, which are not in the electronic system and are invisible for issuing permits.
Along with the already mentioned Goloseevsky National Park, there is another important monument of cultural heritage - Kitaev. In fact, it should have had the status of national significance: Trypillian ceramics, dwellings from the times of Kievan Rus with clay ovens, etc. were discovered here. The struggle to preserve this monument has been going on for almost 20 years, because deputies of the Kyiv City Council planned the next high-rise buildings and shopping center here.
There are problems not only with land plots, but also with buildings that are already under protection. For example, in Kyiv there is a Museum of Eminent Figures. Of course, they will not touch it, but the protection zone of this monument is not included in the reference plan. And so the developer received permission to build his building nearby, and this threatens the existence of the museum - the structure is ancient, there is a threat of groundwater flooding and the walls may not hold up.
If we are talking about land that is valuable not only for the people of Kiev, but also for the entire state, then such as the streets of Kievan Rus on Pochtovaya will simply be land of communal property. And therefore developers will be able to relatively easily obtain it for development. This is how the GZK will “cut up” areas with archaeological objects as ordinary lands.
And at such moments, the prosecutor’s office must protect state interests. But if the developer manages to dig and remove a layer of soil where there may be, for example, archaeological finds, then there is no object for law enforcement to protect at all. Here you will just have to go to criminal proceedings and find out who should have and did not have time to enter information into the electronic system and did not do so. But the situation with the preservation of cultural heritage cannot be corrected. Exhibits from the exhibition “Archaeologist's Day.
Despite this, the Unified State Electronic System in the field of construction, which is one of the pride of Deputy Prime Minister Mikhail Fedorov, should automatically block attempts to obtain permission in violation of monument protection requirements. But she doesn’t block it, because she has nowhere to look at these monument protection requirements. Therefore, the role of “a computer that does not take bribes” is performed manually by officials. Judging by the results, those who “don’t take bribes” perform this role poorly.
“Strategic” contribution of bill No. 5655
The “reform,” which was supported by legislators a year ago, simply abolishes this ability of a computer, currently provided for by law, to automatically block the issuance of a permit in the event of such violations of legal requirements. And so that officials do not take bribes, this right is transferred from them to experts chosen by the developer himself.
At the same time, automatic checks of legality remain, but only checks, not decisions. The computer identifies violations, and then an expert hired by the developer manually gives an opinion as to why the computer is wrong. Then everything is simple: the computer “automatically” registers the right to construction, in which it itself discovered violations.
Not only are the conditions for obtaining a building permit easier for the developer. Now, if a permit for illegal construction was obtained through a corruption scheme, it is enough to establish the fact of violations during the inspection - and then it can be canceled. According to Shulyak’s project, the new right to build is an indulgence to violate the law. It can be canceled only if the developer himself violates the approved project.
That is, if the developer of the Osokorki ecopark does not violate his project and does everything as planned, then everything will be fine and no one will forbid him to build further, although this is a water fund object.
Instead of stopping illegal construction, in bill No. 5655 they decided to simply fine the designer and experts. And here it is important to recall that the first requirement in the NACP’s comments was precisely to provide for the possibility of revoking permission for illegal construction if violations are detected. But it was not implemented, although both the head of the NAPC and the main author of the bill promised that everything would be taken into account.
“The very fact of introducing the principle of tacit consent, when in the absence of approvals or objections, design documentation for cultural heritage sites is considered agreed upon, is a crime, given the existing situation in the field. And considering the entire mechanism for obtaining permits, which 5655 proposes, and the actual impossibility of stopping illegal construction, you understand that with such laws we risk being left without cultural heritage sites at all. And it will not be Russian missiles that will destroy it, but our developers, together with such legislators. We need sound rules and sensible safeguards in the system of cultural heritage protection that take into account our very limited resources. And here is all hope for the new Town Planning Code,” notes Deputy Chairman of the Architectural Chamber of Ukraine Anna Kiriy.
Now the Committee on State Construction and Local Self-Government continues to work on the Town Planning Code. A working group is working. The head of this group, MP Anna Bondar (“Servant of the People”), said that the issue of preserving cultural heritage will be developed by a separate subgroup, because this issue requires careful study.
One of the key issues that legislators must work out concerns the electronic system, in which all restrictions must first be introduced and only then permits must be issued. And it is not necessary to do this for all objects throughout the country at once - you can first in one, then in another region, and so cover the entire territory of the country. After all, the volumes are truly colossal and this requires considerable budgets.
... Let us remind you that the government is now launching an “eMemory” - the State Register of Immovable Monuments of Ukraine. The Ministry of Culture here works together with the Ministry of Reconstruction. From January 1, 2024, the register should be available to all citizens. The government told ZN.UA that it is now actively working to find funds to implement the key tasks of the project and is attracting international technical assistance. According to preliminary calculations by the ministry, the implementation of such a program for historical cities will require at least $2.5 million.
The Ministry of Culture assures that the “eMemo” will prevent chaotic development in the historical areas of cities, in particular during post-war reconstruction. But now, with the planned filling, it cannot be the State Register. The requirements of legislation on decommunization and the fight against the imperial past, as well as on the protection of cultural heritage, are not taken into account here.
