How Petersburgers tried to protect the park and square with amendments to the general plan

Petersburgers proposed more than 2000 changes to the new general plan of the city, which will be valid until 2040. The applications of residents concerned the renovation program, “Tuchkova Buyana”, the reserve “Shchuchye Lake” - in most of them residents tried to protect green territories from development.

The Commission for Amendments to the General Plan rejected the main part of the proposals, but some decided to take into account the final version of the document.

“Paper” talked with the authors and participants of several initiatives about how they manage to combine personal affairs and activism, how many resources it requires and what results were achieved.

Marianna Bakan

Participant of the initiative group "For the preservation of the Murinsky Park." The Commission on Changing the General Plan of St. Petersburg approved her application for transferring part of the park into a zone of landscaped territories of public

- I am protecting the Murinsky park for 10 years. This is my consistent work. I am part of the asset of residents who protect the green territory. We have a chat where we communicate, discuss, prepare documents. If one of us goes to meetings, then most often me.

I am a teacher in medicine, a doctor in a specialty, I am engaged in permanent makeup. Communication and communication is my comfort zone. All people are interesting to me, and therefore I like interaction with like -minded people and attracting them to the idea. Activism can be called my hobby. I am moving the desire to help others and ennoble the place in which I live. Watching everything that happens in the city and knowing many defenders who are much stronger than me, I can say that we managed to enter almost the top three in the best result.

The initiative group “For the preservation of the Murinsky Park” always acted very voluminous. We submitted more than 10 applications [to the general plan]: both two years ago and a year ago - but we were deployed. Usually we try to use all directions of appeals through deputies.

I believe that the city should take care of the interests of local residents. In parallel with the campaign for the protection of the Murinsky Park, we carry out many other tasks: we participate in improvement, go to meetings with the administration, with the improvement department, with representatives of the “Your budget” project.

We meet with deputies, tell them about the needs of residents [Kalininsky district]. I held meetings with the [speaker of the Legislative Assembly Alexander] Belsky, deputies of the Legislative Assembly - Mikhail Amosov, Irina Ivanova, Marina Shishkina. They are very charismatic, imprisoned for orally settling [problems].

Of course, we are grateful to them for the fact that [our business] advanced, but there was incredibly a lot of strength. When other defenders of parks, squares and other territories, what a key step in this batch of chess, ask me, I say: “This is 250 parties in 10 years.”

This is a constant job. Until we were shot. (In 2019, about 200 residents went on a folk gathering against the construction of a residential complex in the park. OMON with autosaks came to the place. According to activists, the security forces threatened Marianne Bakan - approx. Papers ). [The police] pressed me, brought me to tears. I said: “If for you a resident, a doctor worried about the Murinsky park, is a danger, then delay.”

There were other cases when the police were chasing me. Before the saw of our birch grove, there were spontaneous fees of residents. Then the police did not yet understand what to do with us, then they acted quietly and peacefully in this regard.

In the near future I plan to curtail my activities. For 10 years [activism] I have grown, has become a big and very strong person.

Svetlana (name changed)

Participant of the initiative group for the protection of the square Ivan Fomin in the Vyborg district. The Commission on the change in the general plan rejected the application for the transfer of the garden into the zone of landscaped territories of public

- I am 46 years old. I would not call my activity fierce activism. I came to this, like everyone else. Not far from the house where my elderly mother lives, they were going to build a school for children with disabilities. The problem is that construction will affect existing green zones. It will take the place of the garage cooperative and about 30 hundred square meters of the square. Residents began to write requests to the authorities to find out what was happening. At this stage, I joined this public campaign. But everywhere we got a turn from the gate.

We began to act about two years ago: we wrote appeals to officials, deputies, tried to attract the attention of the media. The application to the general plan was several people. Someone wrote other applications from themselves. According to my estimates, 80 people sent their proposals. We asked to include the entire territory of the square in the recreational zone and make a garden out of it. It is small, its area is 7.6 hectares. Most of the pond occupies. And the construction will take 2.6 hectares. The plan shows that a healthy piece is simply cut out of the square of the square - a third or quarter.

The authorities replied that this was not the territory of the garden. And the fact that they take a huge piece was explained by the fact that there are many children with disabilities and there will be even more. We tried to offer other places, but to no avail. Be sure to need a place with developed infrastructure - houses, clinics.

In addition to cutting down green spaces, there are two more problems: that the school is going to build a pond on the shore, and red -hot birds are nesting on it - for example, a red -haired guns. Everything is also bad with hydrology. Honestly, we do not believe the reports that there is soil of medium complexity and they famously score everything with piles and everything will be fine. There is a house with raw cellars, and all the water, when the builders begin to dig, will go there. Residents are not protected in any way.

On the territory of the garden there is a platform for walking dogs, which the inhabitants themselves equipped, as well as a few lucratives. All this will go under demolition. We went to the administration of the Vyborg district, to the deputy of the Zaks Valery Garnet, and they promised that they would find a place where these dovec uses and where to make a new dog venue. But the idea is already buried. The latest answers said that the dog platform will be built in 2025-2026, if there are funds and if the territory is found. That is - nowhere and never.

It is difficult to combine the campaign to protect the square with the rest of life. One another interferes with the other. Activists are generally strange people, and everyone is very tired. There are few of us, and we understand that, to be honest, this is all useless. They don’t hear us.

Now a state procurement has passed, the contractor is determined. When work begins, it is unknown. But they will begin with the demolition of a garage cooperative and sawed trees. The project cost is estimated in the amount of more than 3 billion rubles. I don’t know how much we will have enough strength to contact somewhere.

Probably, in the long run, this can be called attempts to build civil society, this is about the rallying of neighbors. 10 years ago, local residents defended a large piece of garden on Ivan Fomin. Whatever they tried to build up this territory. Then it succeeded: people went out into the street and overlapped the roads, and now the residents and the authorities have a different attitude towards this. But it’s good that the inhabitants tried to fight again.

Alla Andreeva

Protects from the development of the green zone at the intersection of Vodelny streets and Marshal Kazakov in the Krasnoselsky district. The Commission on the Change of the General Plan of St. Petersburg rejected the application for the transfer of the site into the zone of landscaped territories of public

- I am 50 years old. I recently graduated from a legal farm because I realized that I needed a higher legal education - primarily for life in our country. I am engaged in social activities. I plunged into this in 2014, when I became a deceived equity.

Combine activism and personal affairs is terrible, I have a mess at home. My main source of earnings is insurance. I do not need to sit for 8 hours in the office to earn a living. But I'm looking for a second job, because now sales are very much falling - people have no money.

I met these people [representatives of the initiative group protecting the territory on the street of the valor] in July this year. I came to their meeting, looked at them - very good people live there, I like them, but they are raw, a little lost and they did not understand what was next.

I do not live in this area, I just help. I thought, why not help people? Well, who else will help them? I think this: first you help, then they help you. Something turns out, but something, unfortunately, is not.

I am a person who knows how to conduct active social activities. I am shooting a video, leading the VKontakte group, I help from a legal point of view. My posts created a precedent, a check began by order [the head of the Investigative Committee of Alexander] Bastrykin. I don’t know how it ends, but the result is already there.

We formed an operational group that makes decisions. I also wrote appeals [to the authorities], including Alexander Beglov, but received completely standard unsubscribes. I also went to the envoy [Anatoly Seryshev]. The application to the general plan for amendments was not submitted by me, but by the deputy of the ZakSA Andrei Aleskerov.

People were promised a square, in 2019 the project of the square won the competition, but then it did not go anywhere. They plan sealing buildings with houses in 20-25 floors. Officials and developers refer to the PPT (project planning project - approx. "Papers" ) of 2005, according to which the site was given for residential development.

According to this, the PPT was to be built 3,800 apartments, two schools and three kindergartens. At the moment, 1100 more apartments have already been built there and they want to build an additional 1270. There, one school is built there, which is crowded, and one kind of kindergarten in which the children go to two shifts. And in the next quarter a house is built for another 1300 apartments for the Russian Guard, and their children will go to schools and kindergartens first of all - they deserve it. And what to do to everyone else?

Now local residents are preparing a lawsuit in court. There you need to build a large good kindergarten and square.

There are chances, and very good, the main thing is that people do not despair. Our system is sharpened that people do not interfere, do not complain anywhere, do not write to anyone; That they should sit quietly, do not move, do not raise their heads, and for them everything will be done by those who were chosen in ZAS.

Officials, including the governor set by the president, do not hear people. And it turns out that our king is good, and the boyars are bad. The system built by the President of the Russian Federation does not work. If we chose an honest vote, would Beglov become a governor? Yes, his people would not even let him go close. Even if he accidentally became him, he would have been turbulently after the first winter.

This is not the only public campaign that I do. I act as an assistant, consultant. Everyone thinks that VKontakte does not work, but everything is exactly the opposite. The administration, the police, the prosecutor’s office, and the Investigative Committee are sitting there. It is on posts in social networks that checks begin. According to my publications, two criminal cases of illegal landfills have already been instituted.

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