Repairs in exchange for "vacations"

Officials have come up with a new office renovation scheme

City authorities intend to involve tenants living there in the reconstruction of city-owned office buildings. In return, entrepreneurs are promised “rent holidays” - payment benefits or a credit for their repair costs. The head of the city's property department, Vladimir Silkin, admitted yesterday that the authorities are not able to independently repair deteriorating real estate, saying that ideally it would be beneficial for the city to sell the old stock altogether and build new office buildings.

According to Mr. Silkin, the program for the renovation of non-residential facilities adopted back in 2004, according to which 265 thousand square meters of office space was to be reconstructed at the expense of the budget over three years, failed. Of the planned 115 objects, only 23 were repaired and reconstructed, and most of the funds allocated for this amounted to more than 4 billion rubles. - remained undeveloped. The plans of the Moscow government to significantly increase the income of the city treasury from leasing the renovated non-residential property were also not destined to come true. The authorities expected to increase the rent several times after the renovation of the premises. However, the “theoretically correct scheme,” according to the head of the property department, was boycotted by entrepreneurs: tenants refused to leave the premises during the renovation, fearing new prices. And city business executives are mired in litigation with small businesses.

At the same time, other problems arose - due to complaints from homeowners in apartment buildings and the need to transfer non-residential areas into the ownership of the HOA, the question arose of evicting tenants from the first and semi-basement floors of the housing stock. According to estimates from the property department, about 10 million square meters of office space are needed for this, despite the fact that the city’s overall need is more than 60 million square meters.

In such a situation, Mr. Silkin proposed to act radically: the property department intends to shift the reconstruction of dilapidated municipal office premises to tenants using a “pure market approach.” “Our task is to interest entrepreneurs and reduce the financial burden of the city,” said the head of the department. According to him, businesses should be attracted to costly investments in municipal property by prolonging lease agreements, reviewing rent amounts and other benefits.

However, the head of the city’s department for support and development of small businesses, Mikhail Vyshegorodtsev, immediately saw a catch in his colleague’s proposal. In particular, the new rent, which according to the project will be calculated from the difference between the market value of the premises before and after major repairs, taking into account an independent assessment, in his opinion, will deprive small businesses of existing benefits. In addition, Mr. Vyshegorodtsev believes that the entrepreneur is placed in obviously unequal conditions in relation to officials. According to him, they are trying to blame small businesses for the costly preparation of design and estimate documentation, the costs of which the tenants will have to bear even before the final decision on the renovation of the premises.

Mayor Yuri Luzhkov also agreed that the conditions should be transparent for entrepreneurs. He approved the scheme proposed by the property department for involving business in the reconstruction of city real estate, but asked Mr. Silkin to still take into account the interests of business.

Yulia KHOMCHENKO