History of Disorder

Krasnodar, 10 July. The participants of the recent session of the Council at Presidential Plenipotentiary in the Southern Federal District Vladimir Ustinov discussed how the court rulings about unauthorised construction activity are being executed. Kuban Governor Veniamin Kondratiev also took part in this session. 

Demolition of the blocks of flats built without relevant permits does present a real problem in Krasnodar krai. Many of such houses are located at the seaside, for instance, in Sochi and Gelendzhik. The regional authorities keep records of the unauthorised constructions which show the entire history of each object – from the moment of its discovery until a court decision is taken. Presently, there are 1,597 constructions in this register, of which 20% are blocks of flats. 

Currently the main issue of the agenda is how to deal with the unauthorised constructions in Sochi. Some of them must be demolished according to the court decision, while others can be preserved. 

The problem looks quite important for Krasnodar too. In 2017–2019, based on the decisions of courts of arbitration and regular courts, 68 unauthorised capital constructions were pulled down in the city. 

For plain citizens, such mass demolitions are evidence of the new course aimed at caring for the appearance of the Kuban cities, and a signal that violations of all procedures in this sphere will not remain without consequences. At the same time, taking into account that the buildings that are being pulled down had been built over many years, the issue remains difficult and controversial from the legal viewpoint. Lawyers remind that each project must be reviewed individually, so that the positive trend of putting things in order should not injure the rights of the law-breakers who did not have malicious intents but became hostages of circumstances. 

“Quite a strange situation has occurred with demolitions of initially unauthorized buildings which later were legalised and were granted the right of property,” Artur Karapetian, Director of RE-Invest.Pro, a realty investment agency from Sochi, says. “It comes out that in order to please the current state of affairs, the basic proprietary interests may be broken and the owners may be deprived of their property. It would be fatal from the legal viewpoint.” 

According to Yuri Pustovit from Yug Law Bureau, although the authorities should proceed with fighting against unauthorized construction projects, they should not demolish such objects if the only sign of arbitrariness is lack of construction permits and if their demolition contradicts the interests of the city, the people who bought flats in such house, or the laws of logics. 

“Lately, there has been a trend that the courts, especially courts of arbitration, have tended to take decisions in favour of demolition of unauthorised constructions,” Mr. Pustovit states. “It is aimed to fight the unlawful construction activities, performed on the sites where it was forbidden by city development plans or land use plans, or the sites without the required technical specifications and construction of accompanying social infrastructure. But, as it often occurs, such fight was absolutized.”

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