You're reading: Update: Kyiv residents claim Klitschko is breaking promises by allowing construction on lake

In a fast-developing neighborhood of high-rise residential blocks on Kyiv’s left bank, residents say their protests against illegal construction are being ignored by Mayor Vitali Klitschko.

Zhytloinvestbud UKB wants to build a residential block with 1,276 apartments, between Poznyaki and Livoberezhna metro, in space currently occupied by a shallow lake. Local activists want to stop the development, and a conflict between them has now flared up.

The
activists say Zhytloinvestbud does not have the proper permits for
construction, as Kyiv City Council’s decision to sell the land in December 2014
was illegal and done without the consent of residents.

“We want
the construction to stop until we can be sure of the legality of their
activities. And we want to be listened to,” Serhiy Kutsenko, a local resident
and activist, told the Kyiv Post at the site on March 21.

Attempts to
fill the lake with sand began in spring 2015, but after a public outcry, the
Kyiv mayor on Aptil 15, 2015 said that the lake was
Kyiv city property and promised it would not be touched. However, work to fill
in the lake suddenly began again on March 12 this year, and so far the mayor
hasn’t said a word about it.

Klitschko
may not have had the right to make these promises.

According
to his aide, William Schreiber, the decision rests with a centralized body, the
State Architecture and Building Inspectorate. Schreiber told the Kyiv Post,
however, that Klitschko was working on decentralizing the inspectorate “to
better protect the city.”

Standoff

For more
than a week, several different groups, including members of the volunteer
Golden Gates Battalion, the patrol police, construction workers, a dozen or so
young heavies, locals protesting against construction, and Elita-Center fraud victims —
who have been allocated 8 percent of the future apartments — have been
involved in a standoff at the site, while trucks filled with sand stand idle on
a nearby road.

Also on
hand are members of the volunteer Kyiv 1 Battalion, which is subordinate to the
Interior Ministry, but which has in the past received more than Hr 3 million in
contributions from the mayor and his brother Wladimir, a professional boxer.

Is it a really a
lake?

Meanwhile,
the dispute over the legality of the construction even involves disagreement
over whether the lake is, in fact, a lake. Zhytloinvestbud, referring to a
resolution by the Institute for General Planning in Kyiv, says the “lake” is
merely an area of groundwater.

One of the
construction managers at Zhytloinvestbud, Volodymyr Chmil, told the Kyiv Post
that he has lived in the area for 20 years, and that the project is no
different from any of the others that have been carried out in the area. In a
seemingly contradictory statement he said all of the surrounding apartment
blocks had been built on lakes.

The
activists, led by Kutsenko, say the area doesn’t have the resources and
infrastructure to support additional people, and they want the lake and the
surrounding area to remain a recreation area for locals.

Nikolai
Hennik, who said he is a victim of the Elita-Center real estate fraud, told
Kyiv Post that the lake is a de facto local rubbish dump and that he knew of
several locals who want the construction to begin. Another fraud victim,
Alexandra Kerotych, said that they would campaign together with local residents
for new kindergartens and schools in the area — once the construction of their
apartment block is finished.

Claims of ecocide

But the
locals campaigning against the construction say people linked to
Zhytloinvestbud have been purposely dirtying the site in order to add weight to
their arguments.

Part of the
lake has already been filled in with sand, and a layer of white foam now coats
much of the lake’s remaining surface – evidence, locals say, that the building
company poured chemicals into the water to kill off the wildlife that lived in
the lake.

Larisa
Poyevskovo, who lives in a building overlooking the site, said that the
company’s actions on the site could be considered ecocide under the Article 441
of the Ukrainian Criminal Code, due to the destruction of the habitat of the
ducks and other wildlife that lived there.

Sergey Kutsenko (left) and Larisa Poyevskovo (right) hold a copy of the Ukrainian Criminal Code at the site on March 21 (Isobel Koshiw)

Dispute gets ugly

Chmil of
Zhytloinvestbud showed the Kyiv Post five documents relating to the company’s
right to construct on the land, which were issued by Kyiv City Council and the
State Architecture and Construction Body.

But former
mayoral candidate, Klitschko rival and Kyiv City deputy Boryslav Bereza, who
was also present at the site, told the Kyiv Post that if the company had had
the right documents they would be “building right now.”

Allan Slipher, Land Advisor to Klitschko, told Kyiv Post on March 28 that the main issue is the public participation is not part of the current land allocation process. So well the Euromaidan revolution happened and people are more willing to challenge the authorities, the same legislation remains in place, according to Slipher.

In an ugly
turn to the dispute, those who are protesting against the construction say they
were physically assaulted and threatened on March 17 by people they claim were
paid thugs hired by Zhytloinvestbud. In a
video of the disturbance, filmed by Serhiy
Myronyuk, a local activist opposing the construction, some of those involved
are seen holding Elita-Center banners. However, Myronyuk told Ukrainian online
news website Censor.net.ua that he believed some of the Elita-Center protesters
were fake.

According
to a Facebook post written by Bereza on March 21, Zhytloinvestbud is using the
Elita-Center victims as cover to push forward with a lucrative, but illegal
development project.

Meanwhile,
the standoff at the construction site continues. Visiting the site on March 21,
the Kyiv Post observed a large group of young men who appeared to be between 16
and 20 years old standing near a white minibus not far from the site. The men
refused to be interviewed but were confronted by locals and the patrol police,
who then proceeded to interview a few inside the minibus.

Bereza
later wrote on his Facebook page that the police had reported that some of
those interviewed were as young as 15 years old.

Chmil of
Zhytloinvestbud denied the construction company had any connection to the young
men.

Kyiv Post staff
writer Isobel Koshiw can be reached at [email protected]

This article was updated on March 31 to include the comments of Allan Slipher, Land Advisor to Kyiv Mayor Viltalii Klitschko.


Various interest groups stand at the site on March 21 (Isobel Koshiw)