Ex-Interpol chief accused of sabotaging real estate project.
Many houses in the historical center of Kyiv have amazing stories. While some stand out for an architectural nuance, others boast a connection with famous people, some of whom have their images preserved in monuments on the faces of illustrious buildings.
Newly built houses squeezed into historical neighborhoods also have stories. Unfortunately, many of them feature land disputes and corruption.
A plot at Honchara 17-23 – two blocks away from the Saint Sophia Cathedral – is a case in point. Developers envisioned construction of a luxury, nine-story apartment project by the end of 2010. But a powerful neighbor got in the way. And now construction has practically ground to a halt, at least until some court decides who is right.
Kyrylo Kulikov, the former head of Ukraine’s Interpol and now a lawmaker in the Our Ukraine faction in Verkhovna Rada, claims the land was obtained illegally. He is fighting to stop development at all costs.
What started as a construction brawl in courts spilled into a violent protest with the use of tear gas, paint and even a gun, according to witness reports of events that took place on July 16. Activists pulled down a fence and put up a couple of tents to prevent further work at the site.
Police say little. “It’s a stalemate,” explained Pavlo Miroshnychenko, head of the Shevchenko region precinct. “There are two court decisions which contradict one another: the Shevchenko district court banning construction and the Kyiv Economic Court requiring the investor to carry on.”
Kulikov argues that neither residents on Honchara Street, nor heritage protection groups, gave their permission to build a new house. “They have no permits from the Kyiv City Council. It’s a lie,” he said. “We have a situation when there is a historical landmark behind the site, Sophia, where the developers take the fence into the road [impeding traffic] and where developers regularly spray paint and tear gas people [protesting outside].”
Developers, however, insisted the violence came from the other side of the barricade. “He (Kulikov) entered the phase of war with us,” said Oleksandr Dubrov, one of the investors and head of joint American-Ukrainian venture Keros-Kyiv.
Dubrov claims his construction permits are in order. “He [Kulikov] understands that legally he can’t do anything and hired KYPR [the Corporation of the Orange Revolution Participants], an organization of former athletes and criminals created specifically to extort money from developers,” Dubrov said. “It’s a bandit seizure. The danger of this situation is the level of corruption and political structures behind it.”
Dubrov also said that his partners constantly received threats from unknown people via telephone. In one of the calls, someone “said it would cost $5 million to stop everything.”
While power brokers duel in courts, Honchara residents wonder what will happen to their already densely-developed street. Overwhelmed by an ongoing aggressive protest outside their homes, some suspect the developers would build higher than the initially planned nine floors, which would disrupt the street’s ensemble.
Others say they do not mind the cranes as long as the company fixes electrical substations and replaces cracking water and sewage pipes. Those residents whose windows face the construction site complained the most, until the dispute ended construction.
“They start hammering away at 7:30 a.m. The whole house is shaking,” said Oleksiy Nesterov, pointing at the cracks in his building. “No one’s asked our opinion about it. They have secretly moved out people from the old house, gutted the site and then suddenly started construction,” added Olena Sokol, pushing the stroller. She said she would prefer a park and a children’s playground.
But it’s not only the residents who are outraged by the development disputes. If it was up to national heritage societies, they would demolish half of the newly-built houses in the center. “We are not against the construction itself, we are against the fact they do not consult us first,” said Roksolana Ivanchenko, adviser to UNESCO national committee in Ukraine. She explained there are certain rules that developers must comply with building in close proximity to national shrines. Often, she added, owners prefer bribing someone else to bypass their commission.
“The Hyatt [hotel] and DaVinci restaurant [both right next to the Sophia Cathedral] made it on the [black] list of the UNESCO monitoring mission for brutal violations of norms. They have these glass facades which don’t correspond with the architectural ensemble which has been there for centuries,” Ivanchenko said.
UNESCO representatives warned that if Ukraine does not put construction plans in the city center on hold before next year, St. Sophia and Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra Monastery may lose their world heritage status.
The squabble at Honchara street is not an isolated case in Kyiv. Since 2006, director of Jones East 8 real estate company, Phil Hudson, has been locked in a dispute over the construction in the domain of his house at 4 Ivan Franko. “They completed their project now, but they’ve got huge problems because they built on land which is not theirs,” Hudson said. “But because they are very powerful and connected, I assume they’re not too worried about it.”
The disputed Ivan Franko land plot has been allocated to the DIA Development Company – allegedly affiliated with David Zhvania, former Emergency Affairs minister – behind closed doors, explained Hudson. He said that shady neighbors keep intruding onto their territory “sending a bunch of thugs with militia who would not identify themselves” to interfere with works on their site.
There are plenty of other land disputes in the area, including the construction of the new Georgian Embassy on 22 Honchara. Residents are also protesting against the dismantling of the bicycle track at 58 Khmelnytskoho and planned construction of three new buildings in its stead. A high-rising hotel that is being built on 69 Honchara has also been locked in a dispute with local residents who claim it has caused cracks in the nearby building.
There is a brewing dispute on 59 Khmelyntskohgo over a high-rising building that aims to replace an existing 3-story building, and another dispute that has only just ended across the road over development of Zoi Kosmodemyanskoi garden.
Sources in the Kyiv city council said the construction at Honchara was legitimate, and the protest was likely organized to squeeze out money from the developer. Dubrov said that idle cranes cost them Hr 1 million each day. And idle they will sit, apparently, at least until a judge with clout takes a side in the dispute.
