You're reading: Authorities announce grand plans for Kyiv, but can’t get basics right

A modern city of green zones and waterfront amusement parks, with rapid transport links serving residents who are twice as rich as today.

A modern city of green zones and waterfront amusement parks, with rapid transport links serving residents who are twice as rich as today

This is the vision of Kyiv in 2025 presented in a new strategy for the city’s development by President Viktor Yanukovych on May 26.

At a gathering of politicians and media at city hall, Yanukovych touted the Kyiv 2025 plan as an example for cities across the nation.

Critics said it is simply a PR exercise with no status and no strategy to accomplish its goals in a city dogged by mismanagement and corruption.

Far from governing a shining city on a hill, municipal authorities are unable to provide hot water reliably, clean up garbage consistently or even control the population of stray dogs – much less keep roads repaired in summer or cleared in winter.

The 72-page document was prepared by Foundation for Effective Governance, owned by Ukrainian billionaire Rinat Akhmetov, and the Boston Consulting Group. The foundation wouldn’t disclose the cost. More than 1,000 Kyivans and a groups of experts were consulted.

According to the strategy, Kyiv has to choose its priorities. In the same way that banks drive Zurich’s economy, Kyiv can develop medical tourism, become a center for domestic and foreign information technology outsourcing or focus on becoming a cultural center for tourism.

Priorities are green zones, city transport, taking enterprises with high pollution out of the city. There is a lot to be done in Kyiv. And it is important to set an example for the rest of the country.

– Viktor Yanukovych

Lives of city dwellers should be made easier if authorities digitalize city management and enable Kyivans to communicate with officials via email, as well as pay fines and order documents online.

Instead of clustering shopping malls and office buildings in the center, authorities should encourage creation of jobs and options for recreation and shopping in remote parts of the city, including the left bank of Kyiv, the document urges. According to the strategy, this will take pressure off city infrastructure and heavily used public transport.

“Priorities are green zones, city transport, taking enterprises with high pollution out of the city,” Yanukovych said. “There is a lot to be done in Kyiv. And it is important to set an example for the rest of the country.”

Cultural events need support and places such as the Dovzhenko film studio should be modernized. The Dnipro River wharf, occupied by a mix of floating restaurants and industrial areas, should be developed and filled with pedestrian zones, amusement parks, hotels and sports grounds, according to the blueprint.
Critics pounced.

“This is hardly a strategy but a set of slogans. I have seen no concrete tactics on how those goals are to be implemented. People live today, not tomorrow. But to promise something for tomorrow is easier than to do something today,” said Leonid Kosakivsky, who served as Kyiv mayor from 1994 to 1998.

Many residents might prefer just to get hot water in their apartments. Summer is the time when all Kyivans spend at least three weeks without hot running water while Kyivenergo, the municipal monopolist for generating, transmitting and distributing heat and electrical power, tests and repairs its pipes and systems.

That explanation doesn’t hold water with everyone. Many residents have no hot water and heat periodically throughout the year, as Kyivenergo has complained that it needs money to replace aging pipes.

But City Administrator Oleksandr Popov said authorities are not distracted from everyday issues in pursuit of a grandiose future. “The strategy enables us to plan the long-term future of the city. Without this vision, all the current problem-solving is short-term and not sustainable,” Popov said.

Appointed by Yanukovych as head of the city administration last year, Popov pushed aside the erratic Mayor Leonid Chernovetsky, who has a barely visible ceremonial role. Popov may have to stand for election as mayor as early as 2012.

If this blueprint is a manifesto guiding Popov, it’s unclear how it will happen. Modernization of the water supply network will cost more than $1 billion, development of transport another 41.5 billion and building of tourist infrastructure at least $15 million. There is no indication, however, of total cost or where the money will come from.

Despite the bombast of the presentation, the document has no legal status. In that sense, it may go the way of other plans. “There is a general city plan until 2020, which is an official document, but even this plan is not being followed,” said Oleksandr Serhiyenko from the City Institute think tank.

Kyiv Post staff writer Svitlana Tuchynska can be reached at [email protected]