Build everything up? Lobbyists are cutting off the “window of opportunity”

The president slowed down the scandalous urban planning reform, but lobbyists found another way...

A bill (11184) has been registered in parliament, the purpose of which is to make life easier for developers. Such legislative initiatives are traditionally presented under the guise of restoration and care for tens of thousands of internally displaced persons.

What do the authors actually propose and why should this idea alarm residents of Ukrainian villages and cities? We explain in detail in the material for “Glavkom”.

One of the safeguards for uncontrolled development that is currently in effect is the designated purpose of land. If a developer wants to build a high-rise instead of a green zone, the local council must vote to change the purpose of the site. To ensure that developers do not face such obstacles, “Servant of the People” Stepan Chernyavsky submitted a project that provides for the possibility of changing the intended purpose of the site if the urban planning documentation is not included in the land cadastre.

This legislative initiative was supported by twenty people’s deputies with their signatures, in particular among the authors of “Servant of the People” Alexander Gorobets and Sergei Bunin.

The Association of Ukrainian Cities has already noted that such a rule will narrow the rights of municipalities and contains corruption risks.

In addition, this project secures new opportunities for agricultural barons: if the law is adopted, they will be able to gain access to especially valuable lands. This initiative also has its own explanation: the key author of the changes is People’s Deputy Chernyavsky, a native of agribusiness and deputy chairman of the committee on agricultural policy.

This is not the first time that the group of deputies, led by Chernyavsky, submitted this project. Almost the same group of authors registered another initiative, which provides for an amnesty for landowners and carte blanche for officials to alienate forests, coastal and border strips, nature reserves, landscape parks, natural monuments, botanical gardens, etc. (11185). The public initiative “Golka” wrote that now communities and the state can return forests, natural reserve and coastal lands illegally allocated to private ownership through the courts at any time, and the mentioned group of people’s deputies proposes to limit the period to five years.

The numbers of the bills on both “amnesty” and land “liberalization” (11185 and 11184, respectively) indicate that they were submitted one after another and on the same day. The timing of the filing also coincides with a massive information campaign in support of the notorious businessman Igor Mazepa, whom the State Bureau of Investigation accuses of land fraud.

The committee that should consider such legislative initiatives is headed by the chairman of the Servant of the People party, Elena Shulyak. This politician is known for lobbying for the controversial urban planning “reform” (bill 5655).

The interests of developers are also lobbied through the Legal Policy Committee, which is headed by Denis Maslov (“Servant of the People”). There are legislative initiatives under consideration that provide that a deputy or official may be guilty of schemes for the alienation of state or community property, but not the one who ultimately received this property (11134 and 11135).

The public initiative “Golka” continues to explore projects that could distort the legislative field in the interests of large players in the construction business, as well as agricultural holdings.

What are you planning?

Now all lands should be included in various functional zones. Such zones determine which category the site belongs to and its intended purpose. There are lands for residential and public development, green, landscape and recreational, historical and cultural purposes, for industrial and warehouse development, lands for transport and engineering communications.

According to the law, functional zones must be part of the development plans of communities and must be included in the State Land Cadastre.

As noted by I. O. Chairman of the State Service of Ukraine for Geodesy, Cartography and Cadastre Dmitry Makarenko, it is very important not to equate the concepts of “land plot” and “functional zone”. After all, several types of functional zones can be defined and included on one plot of land - a road, public buildings and, for example, a green zone.

“By the way, the presence of functional zones significantly simplifies the process of changing the intended purpose of a land plot, because then it is immediately clear what its use is planned in accordance with the urban planning documentation. In fact, there may be hundreds of thousands of functional zones throughout the country. But as of now, the State Land Cadastre has processed only 41 applications for the inclusion of such functional zones. One application for the inclusion of a functional zone may include several types of such zones. So, if we talk about the number of types of functional zones, then they are taken into account in the cadastre of 141. The total area is 3710 hectares, and this is significantly less than 1% of the entire territory of Ukraine. This is happening at a slow pace, because the cost of such work is quite high,” explains Makarenko.

And here is the most interesting thing. The authors of the legislative initiative “on favorable conditions for business development” (11184) propose that in cases where such functional zones are not included in the cadastre, it is possible to change the purpose of land plots without taking such zones into account. And this is almost all the land plots in the country.

Now, according to the law, in order to build industrial facilities, you can change the purpose of land (except for environmental and historical zones) only outside populated areas. If the bill is adopted, a change in purpose will also become possible for lands within populated areas, on which developers will be able to build residential and non-residential structures.

Developers will be able to negotiate directly with the chief architect to change the intended use to the one they need. This approach will definitely contribute to abuses in the area of ​​land use and definitely carries the threat of increasing corruption risks.

Executive Director of the Association of Ukrainian Cities, Alexander Slobozhan, notes that due to the proposed changes in this project, chaotic development may begin: “Plot owners are invited to determine the intended purpose at their discretion, without the position of society, which will lead to massive chaotic development. There are also corruption risks involved - without urban planning documentation and a decision of the local council, the right to make decisions on construction is given solely to the architect. Accordingly, no public discussion or environmental review is provided for.”

Big recovery as a cover for lobbyists

Now, in order to build in a populated area, the developer must obtain urban planning conditions and restrictions from the local council.

This document should specify how many floors the building should have, what the building density should be, what the landscaping should be like, and the like. All these conditions must be consistent with the master plan of the locality.

A developer may not receive urban planning conditions and restrictions in three cases:

• submission of an incomplete list of documents
• identification of inaccurate information in documents certifying the right of ownership or use of a land plot, or in documents certifying ownership of a real estate object located on a land plot; inconsistency of development intentions with the requirements of urban planning documentation at the local level

The authors of the project “on favorable conditions for business development” propose to leave only one reason for refusal - submission of an incomplete package of documents.

That is, it does not matter what documents the developer will submit and what construction project he has planned, if he has submitted all the documents according to the list, they simply do not have the right to refuse to issue him urban planning conditions and restrictions.

The deputies also propose to remove the possibility of making any changes to urban planning conditions and restrictions, leaving only the option of canceling them in accordance with a court decision. And given possible changes to the law, this will be almost impossible.

All this negates the need to develop urban planning documentation, which can result in chaotic development without observing any rules. And at the same time, the role of citizens is leveled.

The importance of the role of society is also emphasized by Janos Brener, city planner of Berlin and expert of the German Society for International Cooperation (GIZ): “In the context of Law 5655 (urban planning “reform”, authored by Shulyak and which was criticized by the European Parliament and the European Commission - “Commander in Chief”), the idea was voiced that he should “destroy” the so-called “monopoly of local authorities in making decisions." This shows a complete lack of understanding of the role and importance of local governments. Regarding the implementation of urban planning documentation, there is a natural monopoly of the community, guaranteed by the Constitution. This is not a technical task (which can be privatized under certain conditions), but a political issue that reflects the real political will of the community.”

In fact, after the urban planning “reform” 5655 was not signed by President Vladimir Zelensky, bills appear in parliament one after another that propose, at first glance, minor changes to the legislation in the interests of developers. But in total it looks like an organized attempt to change the rules in the interests of large construction businesses. That is, in small steps they do what they could not do on the first try.

Activists who in Kyiv are protecting the territory of the Prolisok tourist complex from development already understand what a danger the people’s deputies’ project from the Servant of the People may pose to recreational areas.

“This could ruin all the efforts of the community. Construction is currently underway on recreational lands under the guise of reconstructing a hotel complex. And the discrepancy between the intentions of the development and its intended purpose is the main argument of the defenders,” says activist Marina Antoshchuk, who lives in Kyiv.

Who else will get it?

The bill “on creating favorable conditions for business” takes into account bonuses not only for developers, but also for agribusiness. True, they forgot about the environment.

Since almost 100% of the territory of Ukraine is not covered by functional zones according to the State Land Cadastre, a special classifier will not work as a preventive measure for uncontrolled and non-ecological use of land.

Analyst of the public organization “Ukrainian Environmental Group” Petr Testov says: if the project is supported, then we will face further destruction of steppes or uprooting of self-sown forests.

“The essence of the classifier is simple: if the site is included in the zone of “territories for haymaking and grazing,” then the intended purpose of “agricultural commodity production” cannot be there. That is, it will not be possible to plow here, but you can cut hay, graze livestock, and create protected areas,” notes Testov.

Member of the Verkhovna Rada Environmental Committee Yulia Ovchinnikova (“Servant of the People”) also confirms that if this bill is supported, the area under plowing of pastures and hayfields will increase: “This is extremely harmful for the climate and biodiversity. I believe that, on the contrary, it is necessary to speed up the development of documentation that will define the boundaries of functional zones and thus preserve steppes and meadows.”

The simultaneous appearance of a number of projects in parliament with rules that benefit big business may indicate the activity of a cartel that interacts with legislators.

A cartel occurs when large players from one sector unite and do everything to create favorable conditions for themselves. Cartel agreements are prohibited by European law. Namely, the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union. The Antimonopoly Committee of Ukraine has also been talking for a long time about the harm caused by cartels and notes that they have a strong impact on reducing the welfare of society.