Translated material
Machine Dream
Saving the People's Garage program is difficult for the mayor's office
The implementers of the capital’s “People’s Garage” program, which this year, as the mayor’s office hoped, was supposed to enter a new phase, apparently, again have no reason for rosy reports to the mayor’s office about the car storage spaces that are rapidly being snapped up by Muscovites. At least yesterday’s appeal from the head of the Moscow Department of Road, Bridge and Engineering Construction, Alexander Levchenko, to journalists asking them to refrain from criticizing officials trying to make parking spaces available to citizens was like a cry from the heart. “The easiest way to criticize us is. There is no need for claims that this is an “anti-people’s garage,” Mr. Levchenko complained that criticism only “beats off the hands” and makes you want to “spit on everything and leave.”Such an unexpected reaction from the official was prompted by a question from a Vremya Novostey correspondent about whether the authorities are having problems with allocating sites for the construction of public garages and a request to name specific addresses where multi-level parking lots are being built “for the people.” Without going into verbal detail, representatives of the Department of Road, Bridge and Engineering Construction asked assistants to show reporters a slide show depicting the intensive construction of public parking lots. “They are already under construction,” stated the head of the department’s garage construction and underground space development department, Vitaly Kryuchkov, pointing to the pictures flashing on the screen. The list of specific addresses, according to him, is presented on the official website of the State Unitary Enterprise “Directorate for the Construction and Operation of Garage Facilities of the City of Moscow.” According to Mr. Kryuchkov, this year, out of the 198 program objects currently in operation, 162 public garages should be commissioned.
As specified in the official press release of the department, “ground work is underway” at 121 construction sites for public garages. It is noteworthy that the website to which officials refer actually contains a map of the city with an address list of objects for shared construction of public garages. However, the status of most construction sites is uncertain. According to information from the website, only one public parking lot in the Otradnoe district of the North-Eastern administrative district of the capital, designed for 428 cars, is “in operation” and has reached the stage of “foundation construction”. “The building under construction is an open ground detached four-level parking garage with an usable roof and storage for cars,” says the description of the public parking lot on Rimsky-Korsakov Street.
Let us recall that earlier Moscow prefects and builders complained that the development of this program was hampered by the city’s land problems. At first, restrictions on adjusting the boundaries of the natural complex became an obstacle to the construction of multi-storey garages in place of courtyard flat parking lots, and then there was also a moratorium on infill development. In addition, Muscovites who do not have personal transport objected to the appearance of “accessible garages” in their yards, and car owners themselves were in no hurry to invest in rather expensive parking spaces.
Now, as officials assure, they have managed to make the construction program as accessible and attractive as possible for residents. According to Mr. Kryuchkov, the cost of one space in a public garage does not exceed 350 thousand rubles, and there is no reason yet to say that the price will increase in 2010. Participants in the program, as the mayor’s office assures, after an initial payment of 30% of the cost can pay off the remaining amount in installments. According to the Department of Road, Bridge and Engineering Construction, more than 15 thousand have now signed agreements for shared participation in the construction of parking lots. And there are about 70 thousand applications for participation in the program.
In conditions of an acute budget deficit and the incapacity of large investors, the curators of the program from the mayor’s office are counting on the gullibility of Muscovites. At least in the relevant department, a scheme is being developed that will “provide financing for construction until the registration of equity participation agreements with citizens.” As stated in the official press release, officials propose “at the stage of registering land plots for lease between the directorate and potential participants in shared construction, drawing up preliminary agreements that do not provide for payment, but indicating the construction time frame, the cost of a parking space, the location in the garage and the address of the facility.” . And as security for these agreements, shareholders will be offered to open a letter of credit in favor of the directorate in a bank authorized by the Moscow government or purchase a bill of exchange.
But when asked whether the builders have now managed to resolve all land issues, representatives of the road, bridge and engineering construction department responded evasively. However, apparently, the process of negotiations with the owners of parking spaces in the flat parking lots subject to demolition is going difficult. At the very least, as Alexander Levchenko stated, it would be more expedient and cheaper to provide places in “people’s garages” instead of the monetary compensation provided in these cases. It is possible that garage builders will breathe easier after the introduction in 2010 of the general plan of Moscow until 2025 and the rules of land use and development, which regulate the conditions for the use of city land. At least, according to the plans of garage builders, 423 sites have already been selected for next year, on which it is planned to build 142 thousand parking spaces.
As Mikhail Blinkin, scientific director of the Research Institute of Transport and Road Facilities, told Vremya Novostey, despite the fact that garage construction has really moved forward recently, “the situation with land plots in Moscow is extremely bad.” “All the vacant lots in the city center and in housing estates, which the designers of the 70s and 80s left in case of the American path of development of the situation with the motorization of the population, were built up with housing, offices, and trade at a hurricane pace,” the expert said. At the same time, according to him, the proportions of territories allocated for transport needs and housing “are frankly poorly regulated in Moscow.” And even in the new urban planning documents, according to Mr. Blinkin, these proportions are not directly spelled out. “Parking is a special case of a general urban planning imbalance,” the expert believes.