Open Democracy Article: Ukraine prepares to give free rein to property developers with new legislation

Critics fear a new planning law will hand power to property developers and put Ukraine’s historic buildings at risk

At first, Dmytro Perov didn’t believe his grandmother’s stories about ancient caves beneath the courtyard of the 19th-century building where his family had once lived in Kyiv.

“I thought someone had just made it up,” the lawyer and activist told openDemocracy.

But plans to build a new residential complex on the site spurred him to investigate his grandmother’s story.

He had good reason to worry. Ukrainian officials’ ‘fast-track’ approach to developers’ plans – which is not without a whiff of corruption – has continued since Russia invaded the country. Indeed, activists say that the demolition of Kyiv’s historic sites has sped up during the war.

On 13 December, the Ukrainian parliament rushed through radical amendments to planning laws. The vast majority of property developers supported them, but journalists, architects and other public figures have sounded the alarm.

These new regulations, which were drawn up before the war, will hand unprecedented powers to Ukraine’s construction industry, critics say.

In November, Perov – who works for a group dedicated to the city’s heritage and often opposes the demolition of old buildings in court – and a group of friends found a complex of four caves at the abandoned and mostly ruined house where his grandmother had lived. It stands on the city’s central Voznesenskyi Uzviz, a street which connects two historic districts, Podil and Verkhne Misto.

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https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/odr/ukraine-planning-law-historic-building-demolition-property-developer/