Ungentlemanly agreements. Yekaterinburg is rocked by scandals in the urban planning sector
The mayor of Yekaterinburg, Alexey Orlov, called the construction industry a driver of the city’s development in an interview with RBC. He said that thanks to developers, a significant part of the city’s residents have jobs and salaries, and over the past year, developers have delivered more than 1 million square meters of housing for a population of 59 million people, as well as 1,58 thousand square meters of commercial real estate.
City authorities try to work within the framework of “gentlemen’s agreements” and take into account the opinions of citizens, so the decision to demolish this or that object for the sake of building a new one is made based on their comments, Orlov noted. He called the level of communication with residents unprecedented, noting that developers are trying not to violate the agreements reached.
“Surely you remember the case when the court prohibited the mayor’s office from approving the facades. Then the initiative to negotiate and submit for public discussion the external appearance of buildings in the city center came from the Guild of Builders of the Urals. And, as a rule, architects and designers take into account all recommendations in order to find a balance of interests and not stop the project. Although, really, we cannot ban anything,” he said.
Local residents believe that the behavior of developers is often far from gentlemanly, recalling how many urban planning scandals happened under Orlov, especially in connection with projects for integrated development of territories and the protection of green spaces.
At the beginning of January 2023, the estate of Alexander Volkov lost its historical outbuildings, despite the protests of city defenders. The developer insisted on the demolition of the outbuildings; experts in local history and architectural history claim that the house’s status as a cultural heritage site lost due to unreliable examination. The developer, Kuibysheva 99 LLC, affiliated with the well-known Tyumen company Newton, did not present its project before the demolition work began.
In February 2022, citizens protested because of the developer’s plans to cut down the forest in the Shirokaya Rechka microdistrict and build high-rise buildings there - initially, on the site given to the developer, a low-rise “city in a park” was supposed to appear, built according to all the principles of “green ideology” with a minimum of harm nature – this is the project that was presented to the public. But, according to the architect of the Alkuta bureau Alexey Kukovyakin, the owner of the site abandoned it and proposed a new project with ordinary multi-section houses, leaving little of the forest. Mayor Alexei Orlov signed a project for surveying the area under the forest, without doubting the advisability of felling.
A year earlier, activists of the “Local Residents” movement demanded that Orlov and the governor of the Sverdlovsk region, Evgeny Kuyvashev, stop demolition pre-revolutionary buildings not included in the register of historical and architectural monuments. But the demolitions continued: characteristically, sometimes just a vacant lot was left on the site of destroyed ancient houses, as was the case, for example, after the destruction of house No. 14 on Melnikov Street.
It is worth noting that shortly before Orlov’s interview with RBC, the administration of Yekaterinburg sold at auction the right to develop neighborhoods in Uralmash and Elmash. One of the three lots - for participation in the integrated development of territories - went for an incredibly low price - 641 thousand rubles. Journalists noticed that such “Brusnika” company received the “gift” the head of which, Alexei Krukovsky, is called one of Governor Kuyvashev’s friends, and it was suggested that in this way the mayor once again “fulfilled” his appointment.
If you find an error, please select a piece of text and press Ctrl + Enter.
Thank you!
Now the editors are aware.