The competition for the construction of roads in a residential neighborhood is expected to be held in the summer.

The outgoing head of the Committee on Investments and Strategic Projects, Alexei Chichkanov, said that in the summer a competition will be announced for the construction of 7.7 km of free roads in the Slavyanka residential area on a PPP basis. The contractor must invest 1.1 billion rubles in the construction of routes within two years and maintain them for ten years. For this, the city will pay the winner 1.76 billion rubles in equal shares during the service period. The authorities expect that not only Baltros Group of Companies, the developer of Slavyanka, will show interest in the competition. At the same time, the company has not yet begun to receive money for the construction and operation of schools and kindergartens in the area, also built under the PPP scheme.

In the summer, the city will hold a competition for the creation and operation, on the basis of a public-private partnership (PPP), of free roads in the territory of the Slavyanka residential area (located near Pushkin, developer Baltros Group of Companies). The competition will include the right to build roads with a total length of 7.7 km. Their estimated cost is 1.1 billion rubles.

The preparation of the tender is carried out by the Committee on Investments and Strategic Projects (KISP). As Alexey Chichkanov, the chairman of KISP, said yesterday at his farewell meeting with journalists (from May 28 he is leaving for the position of vice president at Gazprombank - Kommersant ), the winner will have to design and build roads in no more than two years at his own expense and raised funds. After the routes are delivered, the investor will operate them for ten years (since the roads will be free, their operation means routine repairs and maintenance). The city's capital investments over these ten years will amount to 1.76 billion rubles. This money compensates the contractor’s costs for the construction and operation of the routes and for attracting resources.

“Naturally, Baltros is the most likely interested party in this competition, but we fully accept the participation of other applicants. After the schools were built in Slavyanka, I had five or six meetings with representatives of banks who are ready to finance similar projects,” said Alexey Chichkanov.

To date, Baltros has built one school and two kindergartens in Slavyanka on a PPP basis. Oleg Eremin, first vice-president of Baltros Management Company CJSC, reported that despite the fact that the facilities are already operating, the city has not yet made a single payment to the company under the contract.

KISP explained the delay in compensation by the fact that a number of legal acts regulating the procedure for payments had not been adopted. According to the department, the approval of a draft resolution of the city government on the procedure for providing subsidies by the administration of the Pushkinsky district is currently being completed.

Yesterday, Baltros told Kommersant that there is “certain progress” on this issue, but the city has not yet received money into the company’s account. Despite this, Baltros will take part in the competition for the right to build roads in Slavyanka.

As explained in the CTTI, the next road facilities that will be built under the PPP scheme should be determined by the Committee for the Development of Transport Infrastructure (CTID). The KRTI press service yesterday could not provide information about which addresses the city would like to build roads at without primary costs.

Seregy Barchevsky, General Director of Mostootryad N 19 OJSC, believes that the future lies in this format of road construction. "Because this gives the customer confidence that the operation will be in good hands. This motivates the contractor to build better and with higher quality. The most difficult thing with such a scheme is to find an investor. Without attracting third-party capital, road builders will not be able to take part in this, since they have there is no free money,” believes Mr. Barchevsky. In his opinion, it is possible to build roads under the PPP scheme at any address, but carrying out routine repairs will not be possible in such a format.

Denis Demin, head of the analytical department of the investment company BFA, believes that such a project cannot be of interest to investors. “A yield of 4.8 percent without taking into account the costs of operating the route is absolutely uninteresting for an investor. It is unrealistic to attract 1.1 billion at such a percentage. An investor may only be interested in this if the real cost of constructing these routes is significantly less than 1.1 billion rubles.” , the analyst thinks. Mr. Demin believes that apart from Baltros, for which participation in this competition is almost an obligation, no companies will show interest in the tender. “If an investor wants stable income for several years, it is more profitable for him to buy St. Petersburg bonds, the yield of which is 8 percent per year,” says Denis Demin.

However, KISP’s plans for the competition may also undergo adjustments. Speaking last week at the Legislative Assembly of St. Petersburg, Governor Georgy Poltavchenko proposed dividing the city into two zones. In the first, the construction of social and engineering infrastructure will be carried out at the expense of the budget, in the second - at the expense of the investor. And whether the Slavyanka lands will end up in the “budget” zone is another question.

Vlada Gasnikova

Farewell promise to "Slavyanka"