Citizens, I can't hear you!

The Moscow City Duma actually abolishes the institution of public hearings. Another law that curtails our rights is being passed quietly

The Moscow City Duma actually abolishes the institution of public hearings. Another law that curtails our rights is being passed quietly

The website of the Moscow City Duma cheerfully announces that the changes in the Code "will make the implementation of the main urban development projects more dynamic, and the procedure less bureaucratic." In fact, with this law, the deputies curtail the scope of public hearings - a tool with which the residents of the district can now, at the very least, but can influence what exactly will be built under their window.

The initiator of the bill, a deputy from United Russia, Mikhail Moskvin-Tarkhanov, proposed withdrawing from the sphere of public hearings the GPZU, urban planning plans for land plots, this is a document that specifically indicates what is planned to be built, territorial and sectoral schemes (they contain strategic plans for changing territory), as well as specially protected natural areas, green areas, zones of protection of cultural heritage sites. That is, everything that the residents are ready to fight for is excluded: the authorities will be free to demolish the old building without asking, and build a shopping center on the site of the park.

On this, not calming down, the deputies propose to reduce the time for notification of hearings to three days. Now local authorities are obliged to notify citizens in a week - and this is a short, insufficient period, because the government often does not contribute, but hinders the notification: announcements that are hung by initiative residents are disrupted, and the district newspaper, which is obliged to publish an announcement of the hearings, is carried home to a few days later.

On Thursday, about 40 independent municipal deputies gathered in the Moscow City Duma - public hearings were one of their main means of struggle - and several dozen disgruntled citizens. They were invited to the meeting by Andrei Klychkov, one of two deputies from the Communist Party of the Russian Federation in the City Duma, who opposes the law.

The general opinion was expressed by Konstantin Jankauskas, deputy of the Zyuzino district: “Public hearings are a tool for correcting urban planning errors: decisions on super-dense development or development of recreational areas.” And Mikhail Velmakin from Otradnoye reminded that Russia has signed an international document - the European Charter on Local Self-Government, and the new law violates it.

The municipalities agreed to write their amendments to the bill: on Monday, Klychkov will announce them at a meeting of the Duma. True, there is little hope that the deputies will listen to him.

However, it is possible that the deputies are digging a hole for themselves. As Maxim Motin, a municipality from Pechatniki, rightly noted, now that citizens are being deprived of the opportunity to act in a legal field, people will begin to organize spontaneous rallies in construction sites and jump under bulldozers.