Public hearings on draft regulations on land use and site development held in Sochi

On December 11-13, Sochi districts held public hearings on the draft "Rules of Land Use and Development of Sochi" (RLUD). The RLUD draft was designed by the Limited Liability Company (LLC) "Institute of Building Projects" from St Petersburg under the order of the Department of Architecture and Town-Planning of Sochi Administration.

In the opinion of Alexander Smirnov, Chief Engineer of the RLUD draft, the Rules will stop the chaotic building-up and form the basis of town-planning in Sochi.

Olga Kozinskaya, chair of the public formation "City Town-Planning Board" believes that the RLUD will protect the city and townspeople against the "town-planning robbery". However, according to her story, Sochi residents are also convinced that the presented RLUD draft contains no regulations to meet these expectations.

"We asked and ask the municipality to extend the consideration for up to 4 months, as the law permits, at least till mid-January 2010," Olga Kozinskaya has addressed Oleg Sheveiko. However, the chief architect found the request ungrounded, as non-adoption of the Rules this year will hamper issuance of construction permits in 2010.

"The draft breaks the rights of thousands of citizens. It is done with roughest violations of the law and is enforced by violent methods, just like everything that happens in Sochi," public activist Mikhail Sokolov said in his presentation.

Ms Kozinskaya has also noted that the city-resort Sochi is "an extremely complex organism with unique features."

"Specialization of the city is as a medical-health-improving resort; in the long term - of the world level. Its mission is to be an all-Russia health resort. The official state status is that of a federal resort. It's an informal summer capital of the Russian Federation. It's also a frontier city with the sea and overland borders. Its international status is of the object of the World Natural Heritage. It's a coastal city of the international water body - the Black Sea, and it is the capital of the 2014 Winter Olympiad. The uniqueness of the resort is in stocks of mineral water and the extent of its beaches - the longest in Europe. It is a locality with subtropical climate of the coastal area in combination with the mountain climate of the southwest slope of the Caucasus. Here, we have the most complicated engineering-geological conditions and the hydrographic diversity of the landscape. It is the longest city of Eurasia," Olga Kozinskaya said.

In her opinion, all these Sochi peculiarities were ignored by the RLUD designers from St Petersburg.

"The developed rules have no regulations, which ensure free access of people to beaches, preservation of monuments of history, culture and nature, formation of general-use territories: parks, mini-parks, sidewalks, children's playgrounds and resort territories…," she said.