Penal highway

The Moscow City Duma will increase the responsibility of builders for the destruction of city communications

Active spot development of the capital is accompanied by periodic collapses of road surfaces and destruction of city communications. The latest high-profile failure of the roadway on Leningradsky Prospekt, which practically paralyzed the already very busy highway, forced the city authorities to urgently take enforcement action against construction companies. They started, as usual, with threats - yesterday Moscow City Duma deputies adopted in the first reading a bill on tightening penalties imposed on construction organizations for damage to utilities and structures.

The mayor's office had previously promised to bill the construction company that was responsible for Sunday's failure on Leningradsky Prospekt for all losses incurred by the city. Let us recall that the destruction of the roadway caused transport and utility problems, in particular, the water supply pipes supplying the surrounding neighborhoods were damaged. The Moscow City Duma believes that in addition to paying compensation, the heads of construction companies should also bear administrative responsibility. At the same time, the damage to the city economy caused by unscrupulous builders is not commensurate with the size of the fines currently enshrined in legislation. The maximum fine for legal entities is 30 thousand rubles, while, for example, each kilometer of roadway costs the city several orders of magnitude more. True, even with such punitive tariffs, unlucky developers replenished the capital’s treasury by almost 5 million rubles.

Yesterday, the capital's legislators made sure to increase the fee for errors by approving amendments to city laws on administrative liability for offenses in the sphere of city improvement and violation of the maintenance and safety of underground utilities and structures. According to the bill, the fine for legal entities should be from 700 to 1000 minimum wages (minimum wages), from 15 to 25 minimum wages for citizens and from 40 to 50 for officials.

True, in a conversation with a Vremya Novostey correspondent, the chairman of the Moscow City Duma commission on legislation, Alexander Semennikov, who presented the bill, said that fines would have been increased even without the accident on Leningradsky Prospekt. According to him, the bill was ready on July 7 and its consideration in any case was planned for this autumn session. “This measure is a consequence of increasing cases of violation by builders of the standards for the maintenance and safety of underground utilities,” explained Mr. Semennikov. “This problem is especially relevant on the eve of the winter period; we need to exclude the possibility of turning off hot water and heat to the townspeople due to the negligence of builders.” Since the beginning of the year, 159 cases of violation of underground work standards have already been officially recorded in Moscow, and, according to the deputy, the number of emergency situations has increased by 27% compared to last year.

The capital's utility workers generally approve of the initiative of city deputies, especially since it is they, and not the perpetrators, who have to eliminate the consequences of incidents. “We are certainly in favor of increasing responsibility,” Evgenia Bogomolova, press secretary of the State Unitary Enterprise Mosvodokanal, told Vremya Novostey, “and the Moscow City Duma knows best how to increase it.” Meanwhile, fines, according to deputy Alexander Semennikov, are not the only possible deterrent measure. Information is accumulated on each construction company in the economic security department of the mayor's office, and “repeat offenders” who often violate city environmental and urban planning legislation risk ending up on the blacklist of organizations that are barred from entering municipal competitive bidding.

Yulia KHOMCHENKO