Discussions regarding an amusement park on Obolonsky Island in Kyiv do not subside. This is a “gift” for City Day, for which the people of Kiev paid almost 200 million UAH from the budget during the war.
Work on Obolonsky Island indicates that procurement of unauthorized construction can be carried out through the Prozorro system. There are no fuses. And this is far from the only complaint.
The park was built on the territory of a natural reserve with numerous violations of environmental legislation. Based on the results of an environmental audit carried out by the Kyiv Ecological and Cultural Center, the destruction of populations and biotopes of various plants, bats and birds, which are listed in the Red Book and protected by the Berne Convention, was revealed.
There were no permits for the construction of an amusement park; the Kiev City Council never even transferred a plot of land for construction. Without this, the only legal construction work on the island is the major renovation of seven benches and one "garbage dump". The public initiative “Golka” decided to figure out how a new amusement park could appear under the guise of “overhaul”.
Overhaul VS unauthorized construction
The capital's municipal utility company "Pleso" carried out major repairs without documents for the land, urban planning conditions and restrictions, and a building permit. Everything was done under the guise of restoring landscaping elements in a previously built amusement park.
At the same time, “Pleso” in its message noted its intentions to build “a park with an area of more than 1 hectare.” There was no such park on the island, so we are only talking about new construction.
And although the documents specifically refer to an entertainment park, the head of the department of environmental protection and adaptation to climate change of the Kyiv City State Administration, Alexander Vozny, claims that the island is a recreational area, not an entertainment park:
“We tried to create a comfortable place where our defenders and their families, Kiev residents and guests of the city could recover and reboot in nature in a calm and cozy atmosphere. Judging by the reviews, we succeeded. As for bureaucratic issues, the arrangement here was carried out according to the law on the basis of studies, expert opinions, and relevant administrative documents of the Kyiv City State Administration. The island was equipped partly at the expense of domestic patrons, and partly at the expense of the city budget. There are no permanent structures on the island, and when carrying out repair work, special attention was paid to preserving the nature of the island. Since the end of May, more than half a million guests have visited the island, as evidenced by surveillance cameras,” said A. Vozny.
There were no buildings, structures or other infrastructure on the island.
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Only seven benches and one “garbage bin” were officially listed here.
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It is these objects, if they were not invented to create the illusion of the existence of a “recreation area” on the island, that the public utility company “Pleso” had the right to repair. And the amusement park that was built is an unauthorized new construction. They went for it because Pleso could not obtain the right to use this site.
The City Council could transfer a site for construction if there was a zoning plan or a detailed plan of the territory (Article 24 of the Law “On the Regulation of Urban Development”). But there are no such plans. It was possible to develop a detailed plan of the territory without any problems. For an island with an area of 14 hectares, its cost would not exceed 100 thousand UAH. This would take about four months.
But there was a problem - mandatory public discussions and strategic environmental assessments. And this meant the impossibility of hiding the destructive impact on the environment, which during unauthorized construction was hidden by falsifying the content of the environmental impact assessment.
That is, they violated town planning legislation in order to hide the violation of environmental requirements.
How were budget laws violated?
The construction of the park is justified by the decision of the City Council, which provided for the creation of a recreational route with the construction of bridges between the Obolonskaya embankment, the Obolonskaya Spit island and the Sobachye Ustye peninsula (Social Economic Development Program for 2018-2020). But this is not true. There was no talk about any construction of a park on Obolonsky Island.
The Kyiv City Council decided specifically to create a recreational route, providing for the costs of capital investments (and not major repairs) for the development of housing and communal services (and not the organization of improvement) to the department of housing and communal infrastructure (and not ecology) and the municipal enterprise "Kievstroyrekonstruktsiya" ( and not "Pleso").
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The project developed in pursuance of this decision provided only for the laying of pedestrian and bicycle paths for walking on the island.
And the most important thing: the City Council refused to implement such construction at the end of 2020, without providing for it in the next Program for 2021-2023. True, we managed to spend 1.9 million UAH from the budget on the development of a preliminary design that ended up in the trash. The main purchase of the Kyivstroyrekonstruktsiya enterprise was in 2016 for 1.2 million UAH and another 700 thousand for additional work in 2019.
However, KP “Pleso”, in response to a request from the NGO “Golka”, provided an explanation different from that available in the construction documentation. According to him, as a result of a meeting on the construction of a “wave bridge”, Deputy Chairman of the Kyiv City State Administration Valentin Mondrievsky at the end of 2020 ordered the development of a preliminary design for the improvement of Obolonsky Island.
And just two days later, by order of the Kyiv City State Administration, the list of objects for “overhaul of elements of improvement of recreation areas” was changed and work was added on Obolonsky Island with a planned budget of UAH 120 million.
Subsequently, the construction of a new amusement park continued under the guise of major repairs, and money was allocated first by orders of the Kyiv City State Administration, and during martial law - by orders of the environmental department of the Kyiv City State Administration as the main manager of funds.
Thus, there was a gross violation of budget legislation. The City Council never allocated money for capital investments for the construction of the park; it was built with inappropriate use of budget funds allocated by the City Council for major repairs of existing elements of improvement of other recreation areas.
How were urban planning laws violated?
In November 2020, the utility company Pleso announced the procurement of the development of a preliminary design using a simplified procedure. A month later, it entered into an agreement with the Dnieper-based Solid-Project LLC, which offered the highest price. Significantly cheaper offers from other participants were rejected.
The designer already knew for sure at the preparatory stage that this was illegal new construction under the guise of major repairs of non-existent landscaping elements, but he agreed to become an accomplice.
At the beginning of 2021, Pleso entered into an agreement to conduct an examination of the preliminary design with LLC Research and Production Enterprise Interregional Construction Expertise. And a week later, I received a response from the expert company with numerous comments, which, in particular, stated that this was not a major renovation, but a new construction, and that conducting an examination under the law was impossible due to the lack of environmental impact assessment results.
After finalizing the project for a separate purchase, the same expert organization gives a positive report in the summer. And there is every reason to claim that a deliberately unreliable report was provided. Public discussion of the report with an environmental impact assessment began after the examination, and the conclusion of the environmental department was provided on September 22, 2021. Therefore, at the time the expert opinion was provided, the violations with the type of construction had not gone away, and the environmental impact assessment procedure had not yet been completed, so it was impossible to carry out a mandatory check of the inclusion of its results in the project.
It is important to note that the project was ordered with an estimated cost of UAH 120 million, but it was developed with an estimate of UAH 17 million more (+14%). When it comes to budgetary funds, Pleso should have returned the project for revision, and not accepted the work.
The deal was also supported by the Department of Urban Planning and Architecture of the Kyiv City State Administration, which in August 2021 provided a letter stating that urban planning conditions and restrictions are not needed to design such an object. He explained his position by carrying out major repairs of buildings and structures, although, in accordance with his powers, he should have known exactly about the lack of development on the island.
In July 2021, KP Pleso announced a tender for the development of a detailed design, and at the end of August it entered into an agreement with the winner, Dnieper Design and Survey Institute DPVI LLC.
This is a gross violation of the requirements for project development, because the preliminary design is the basis for the development of a detailed design only after its approval (clause 13 of the Procedure for the development of project documentation), and it will be approved by order of the Kyiv City State Administration only in a few months.
In this case, such a violation is fundamental - for budget funds they ordered the development of a project with an estimate significantly higher than the planned amount of financing.
At the end of 2021, KP Pleso entered into an agreement on a non-competitive basis to conduct an examination with the Dnieper branch of Ekspertiza ZO LLC and almost immediately received a positive conclusion. Again, there is every reason to speak directly about providing a deliberately unreliable conclusion. The additional environmental impact assessment report was made public before the full-scale invasion, so it was theoretically impossible for the assessment to verify that the results of such an assessment were taken into account, which is required by law.
According to the results of the examination, the cost of construction increased by another 45 million UAH - up to 182 million. Obviously, an increase in prices by a third in just five months cannot in any way be associated with inflation, but is a consequence of an artificial inflation of the estimate.
A week later, the preliminary design with a “major overhaul” and a price of 137 million UAH was legalized by Vitaliy Klitschko, as the head of the Kyiv City State Administration, with his order of approval. Let us remind you that according to the law, only after this it was possible to order the development of a working draft, which was mentioned above.
On the penultimate day of 2021, KP “Pleso” announced the purchase of the construction itself for 174 million UAH, based on a project with an estimated cost of 182 million. Although such funds from the budget at that time were not planned at all: the Kyiv City State Administration approved a preliminary design for 137 million UAH, and in The order on the distribution of funds for major repairs still provided only 120 million.
The winner in February 2022 was determined as Gidrostroy Limited LLC. But the agreement was not concluded on time due to a full-scale invasion.
The illegal construction of a new park at public expense is clearly untimely in the midst of a war, so the city authorities could cancel the results of the tender, citing a change in circumstances. However, the construction contract was concluded almost immediately after the occupiers were forced out of the region - on April 15, 2022. And a week later, the ecology department of the Kyiv City State Administration, on the basis of a falsified environmental impact assessment report, recognized the construction of an amusement park on the territory of a natural reserve fund as normal.
The deal with “overhaul” and costs inflated by one and a half times was legalized in August and the head of the Kyiv City Military Administration Nikolai Zhirnov gave the go-ahead for the start of illegal construction with his order approving the project.
Hiding behind this, on September 9, the head of the environmental department of the Kyiv City State Administration, Alexander Vozny, approved a modified list of capital repair facilities at the expense of the budget, in which he increased the planned expenses for Obolonsky Island from UAH 120 million to UAH 182 million.
Another violation of legal requirements with an increase in construction costs occurred at the end of last year, when KP Pleso entered into an agreement for additional work worth UAH 13 million with Gidrostroy Limited LLC.
These works were formalized as a separate overhaul, justified by defective inspection reports of non-existent improvement elements. Thus, not only were there violations similar to the main work, but also new ones were added. Such additional work is inextricably linked with the main “overhaul”, so all this had to be formalized as an adjustment to existing design documentation. They resorted to new violations of the law in order to avoid re-approval of the project by order of the head of the Kyiv City State Administration and not to conduct a new environmental impact assessment.
It is also important that the allocation of these additional 13 million UAH of budget funds was not provided for even by the relevant orders of the Department of Environmental Protection of the Kyiv City State Administration, and the total cost of the planned work is still set at 182 million UAH. However, funds for these works were paid from the city budget.
As this analysis shows, through the Prozorro system it is possible to openly and publicly conduct procurement of unauthorized construction. And not a single safety mechanism on the part of the state worked. This is despite the fact that the Kiev city authorities under the leadership of Vitaliy Klitschko are in constant confrontation with the office of the president, and the level of control by the state over the legality of its actions should be increased.
