Future Remains Behind Closed Doors

Krasnodar, 21 August. The time allowed to submit complaints about the draft Krasnodar City Master Plan is over. Now it will be the special 17-member commission consisting of architects, public activists and mayor’s office workers to take the final decision on the future of the regional capital. 

The draft master plan was drawn by research workers of the St. Petersburg Scientific Research Institute of LongTerm Urban Development. To cover the townsfolk’s requirement in green zones and return the appearance of a ‘southern’ city to Krasnodar, it was suggested that the master plan should allocate several barren land parcels which had not been registered as the sites for housing construction for green areas. This was why some privately owned parcels appeared within the boundaries of such green areas. Within a month, the landowner was able to send an appeal against such allocation. As a rule, such situations were resolved in the landowner’s favour. However, the master plan developers noted that the city dwellers must understand that Krasnodar is lacking land resources. On the other hand, this fact should not have stopped the development of the long-awaited document. 

Last July, neither the quarantine nor the heightened alert regime or even the downpours prevented the authorities from holding open public hearings on amendments to the City Master Plan. Governor Veniamin Kondratiev demanded that the decision on the city’s further development should be taken only considering the townsfolk’s view. 

All this time, the provision of openness had been strictly fulfilled, but suddenly before the final stage, the session of the Commission on land use and urban development, common city dwellers were expelled from the list of observers. The discussion of the Master Plan was not to be transmitted live any more “due to the pressure exerted on the Commission,” as the official release of the Department of Architecture and Urban Development claimed. Many local people considered this decision negative. 

“Any closure of the information about the City Master Plan under a vain pretext, whichever it could be, will extremely negatively affect the public opinion,” Gennadi Podlesny, President of the regional NGO “Centre of Applied Social and Political Science”, stated. “It will happen no matter what the actual goal was – to avoid the mythical pressure on the commission, or to improve the quality of the amendments. Consequently, I believe that this decision must be immediately withdrawn. All Krasnodar dwellers should be given a chance to take part in the discussion and see how it is being held.” 

Krasnodar Mayor Yevgeni Pervyshov announced that he cannot change the decision taken by the Commission. “The Commission members expressed their will to work behind the closed doors. It is their right, and I may not affect it anyhow. The composition of the Commission was approved by the City Duma. The members of the Commission on land use and urban development are like jurors – they may not be pressed down,” he noted.

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