Photo: Alexey Smyshlyaev/Interpress

In the coming years, St. Petersburg may face an acute shortage of preschool and general education facilities. This was announced by the chairman of the city committee for economic policy and strategic planning of Smolny, Elena Ulyanova, speaking today at a meeting of the government of St. Petersburg.

Currently, five times fewer preschool education facilities and four times fewer general education facilities are being introduced at the expense of budget funds than is necessary in accordance with the projected need until 2020.

At the same time, E. Ulyanova emphasized, if the need for preschool educational institutions can be partially satisfied by placing them in the built-in premises of residential buildings, then such an approach is impossible with general education facilities. “It is obvious that at this rate of commissioning in five years there will be an acute shortage of educational facilities in St. Petersburg,” summed up the head of KEPiSP.

The problem is aggravated by the fact that budget money for the construction of such facilities (about 5.4 billion rubles per year) will begin to be allocated only in 2018. In these conditions, it is possible to accelerate the pace of commissioning of educational institutions only through private investment. Especially if we are talking about the construction of such institutions outside the zones of integrated development of territories, where the responsibility to build social infrastructure is a priori assigned to developers.

To stimulate investment in the construction of kindergartens and schools, officials are ready to offer investors a choice of two cooperation schemes. The first option is that the investor builds the facility at his own expense, and upon completion of construction, the city buys the facility at the design cost of construction, taking into account annual indexation. The second scheme also provides that the investor builds social infrastructure at his own expense, and the city guarantees its purchase within five years from the moment the facility is put into operation.

Until the purchase, the facility is operated by the investor, and educational activities are carried out by the city. At the same time, the city annually indexes operating costs.

Smolny is confident that given the current conditions of the construction market, the proposed model of cooperation will be a good help for developers. “This will save jobs and ensure minimum profitability with zero risk,” says Elena Ulyanova.

However, builders doubt that the scheme proposed by officials will be in demand. “Such proposals bring nothing but a smile,” comments Mark Lerner, CEO of Petropol. — It is unlikely that the developer will be interested in building at his own expense, that is, in fact, lending money to the city, and then think whether the city will have the money and whether it will want to buy the property. All these are just another attempt to patch up a leaky budget at the expense of business.”

St. Petersburg is on the verge of a school deficit