As people flock to the capital from the provinces, public transportation is crammed and aging for a metropolitan area with more than 3 million people.
Rather than preserving precious parks and squares, greedy officials are sanctioning yet more construction of residential and commercial buildings, even as hundreds of buildings sit empty and decaying.
Kyiv is known as a green capital that respects its history and it should remain so. Moscow and New York, as great as they are, offer examples of cities that let development run amok to their everlasting detriment.
One of the most recent and upsetting examples is news this week that a court has sanctioned the construction of a big residential building for Foreign Ministry employees at a children’s playground and artist hangout on Peysazhna Alley, one of the few remaining leisure walkways in downtown Kyiv.
As Kyiv redevelops, it must preserve trees, public parks and leisure areas, starting with Peysazhna Alley.
We are also anxiously watching President Viktor Yanukovych’s plan to provide low-interest loans to help low-income families buy apartments in newly constructed buildings.
The aim – to help the poor and revive a struggling real estate sector – is overdue and laudable.
But Kyiv has lots of empty residential space that is aging, crumbling and badly in need of repair to make it safe, energy efficient and pleasant to live in.
Moreover, suspicion is widespread that the real aim of low-interest loans for housing is to selectively dole out the cheap credit to political insiders.
Here is what we’d like to see: A major investment in public transportation and parking to help ease the clogged roadways.
Restrictions on downtown traffic through imposition of a “congestion” tax to encourage greater use of public transportation.
Tax incentives directed at redeveloping Kyiv’s vast number of empty buildings and tax penalties for owners who let the buildings stay vacant.
In all of this, the imposition of a substantial property tax, on commercial and residential property, based on market value is long overdue.
Not only does such revenue help finance municipal services all over the world, property taxes also force owners to make productive use of their properties or pay a stiff price for it.
Now building owners are squatters who have no financial incentive to do anything but gamble on rising real estate prices.
Also, as Kyiv redevelops, it must preserve trees, public parks and leisure areas, starting with Peysazhna Alley.
