How residents of Zelenogorsk fight for the forest and reserve "Lake Shchuchye"

Since 2021, residents of Zelenogorsk have been trying to conquer a forest in which the sports committee plans to place a biathlon complex, and Gazprom - a boarding house for the children of its employees. Some of the territories of the Komarovsky forestry were removed from the recreational zone under public and business development to lay the road there.

Residents of the resort district sent hundreds of applications against development and attracted to the examination of experts of the Russian Academy of Sciences. However, according to the results of public hearings on the general plan, the commission rejected all their proposals.

Paper spoke with activist Alina Tabachuk about how harmful development can do the nature of Zelenogorsk and the life of its inhabitants - and why they do not intend to stop the struggle.

- Why did you decide to protect the Zelenogorsk forest?

- I have a house in Zelenogorsk, and in general I am closely connected with this city, because my great -grandfather founded a veterinary Zelenogorsk hospital, known at one time in Leningrad. My grandmother also lived in Zelenogorsk, I spent my childhood here, so these forests are very expensive for me.

- What is the essence of projects that they want to implement in Zelenogorsk?

- In the Zelenogorsk forest, they want to bring two formally unrelated projects. The first is the project of the Gazprom boarding house, which is about to be implemented, because Smolny has already approved the planning of the territory in 2023. 28 hectares of forests are given for construction, which were first transferred to the status of IZHS - under residential development, now “under the object of education”. The boarding house is designed for 2000 children of Gazprom and 500 school staff.

In fact, this is a “city” among the forest from about 20 buildings with a cinema, greenhouses, parks. As part of the fight against this project, we submitted a request to the general plan to change this territory to the territory of P2. This would help protect the forest from any buildings.

The customer of the second project is the Committee on Sports. In the reserve "Lake Shchuchye" they want to build a sports complex and lay the biathlon track. Also, at the site of the forest with red -blooded animals and plants, hotels, stadiums, parking lots will appear. This will take most of the forest territory, which will remain after the construction of Gazprom.

If the Gazprom school is just an educational object for children of employees, then the biathlon track is an object for international competitions. Residents at the hearing in the General Plan appealed to the fact that the prosecutor’s office did not approve the initial project of the biathlon complex, and proposed to stop this disgrace as a whole, returning the carved areas from the forest to the landscaping zone P2. After all, if the prosecutor’s office has banned, then it cannot be built there in the original plan.

So far, the project is in an incomprehensible status, because it is impossible to do it with lighting and asphalting, as they wanted, this contradicts the legislation on specially protected natural territories. But their plans have been preserved.

- What changed after the commission rejected the proposals of residents by changes to the general plan?

- There is a main document - a general plan. It outlines general zoning, within which this or that object is already used for different purposes. For example, if we designate the zone on the general plan as P2, then there you can make some kind of landscaping zone and in any case nothing can be built there. We tried to achieve this, but received a refusal.

Further there are land use and development rules - a document that makes great detail and obeys the rules that are already indicated in the general plan. And under this document there is still a plan for planning the territory. Within the framework of the PPT, for example, we have the status of residential buildings, but the territory planning project can determine what exactly will be built there: for example, an object of education or residential buildings. So when we said that we were against the object of education, we were told to wait for the hearing on the PPT and then say our “against”. When we asked to make a forest instead of residential development, we asked us to wait for the general plan and then make proposals. But in fact, they spit on us both then and then.

In all sections, we were conducted by experts of the Russian Academy of Sciences, who found Red Book animals and rare plants, took the conclusions of landscape specialists. But the commission rejected all the amendments and suggestions that we submitted.

Residents of St. Petersburg and Zelenogorsk asked to transfer plots cut out of the forest into a landscaping zone, but as a result, another section was added to the territories carved from the forest, from which they plan to make an asphalt road. This site was allocated for a very long time, but it had an inconsistent zone. Now the commission has agreed on the transfer of sites for the construction of the road to the future sports complex.

As a result, there are no news for us in the new general plan. The cynicism is simply amazing, because one application was enough from the Committee on Sports with a request to transfer the recreational destination zone - this is immediately approved. And our many sentences with justifications and examinations reject, saying that they “do not meet the criteria of evaluation” - no matter what it means.

- Why are residents opposed to construction?

- The Gazprom boarding house, [in our opinion], does not bear any benefit and even invented social significance. This is not focused on the inhabitants of Zelenogorsk. On the contrary, it loads the city and harms people living here. 2500 people are a huge flow of cars. Someone under the house will have a parking for 120 cars, someone has power plants, [follows from the planning project of the territory].

In the biathlon complex, they are going to train athletes, to conduct international competitions. As stated in the letter of the Committee on Sports, in their free time from training, amateur athletes will be allowed there. But [in the forest] there is a Surf ski, which is used by skiers from all over St. Petersburg and dream of putting it in order - updating the locker rooms, for example. Instead, they cut down the entire environment, which the skiers appreciate.

In addition, the complex will be fenced, because Biathlon is a sport where they shoot. It turns out that the territory cannot be freely passing at any time of the day or night. These fences, which, according to the layout, will be built obliquely, will block the territory of the forest.

- What harm can projects cause local nature?

- I will not even delve into and talk about the dangers of construction for the ecology with a huge cutting of the reserve. The biathlon route itself in width is more than ten meters. The asphalt route involves cutting down trees, laying networks, installing lighting, water supply for equipping. No reserve can be preserved in such conditions. To say that the work will do with minimal damage to nature is ridiculous.

The Gazprom project will destroy 28 hectares [forests] almost to zero. In global terms, the construction will lead to the loss of the quality of the pine forest, which is from 100 to 200 years. Such forests are already very little around St. Petersburg. The status of the resort area has been lost before our eyes, since the coast has been built up in recent years already actively built up (for example, in the area of ​​the Belaya Mountain and the sanatorium of the Sestroretsky resort - approx. "Papers" ).

- Do you plan to go to court if the construction begins and approve all projects?

- In Smolny, apparently, the preservation of the Zelenogorsk forest as such does not need anyone, and everything that can be built up will be built up, including the reserve. But we will fight to the last. Let's go to court because there is something to fight for. This forest has too high value for the city to give up so easy. But after numerous appeals to the general plan were rejected, I don’t know if we won the court.

The inhabitants were absolutely spitting. In February, we submitted 286 applications against the construction of the Gazprom boarding house to the Committee on Urban Planning and Architecture. The project was eventually approved. Here they are - public hearings.

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