Odesa is one of the leaders in the number of emergency housing in Ukraine. According to the Odessa City Council, there are 876 dilapidated and dilapidated houses in the city, of which 143 are adjacent to construction sites, which creates additional risks of collapse.
According to the city economy department, at the end of April of this year, there were 613 dilapidated houses and 263 buildings in a state of disrepair in Odessa. Deformation processes continue, and any emergency house is about to become dilapidated or collapse.
Is it possible to solve the problem of old houses in Odessa, in an exclusive interview with ElitExpert, a deputy of the Odessa city council, a member of the deputy committee on housing and communal services and the head of OO "Odessa under control" Alexey Asaulenko told.
— Even last year, city officials counted the dilapidated houses of Odessa. As it turned out, our city - in the leaders in terms of the number of emergency housing in Ukraine. In which districts of Odessa is this problem most acute?
— I think that the indicators are even worse than calculated. There are more dilapidated and dilapidated houses in Odessa. I assume that the figures were slightly underestimated so that it was not so scary. The most problematic areas are Moldavanka, Peresyp and Slobodka. These are areas that have already been earmarked for some kind of development, and ideally it would be good for developers to go there and build. The second thing is that the developers are not interested there: their priority is, for example, Genuezskaya street or Kievsky district. They are more interested there than in the settlements. Although it is more correct if the city regulates such moments and determines the places of construction. To demolish ten four-story buildings and build a normal high-rise in a depressed area, not in the city center or on the coast.
Also problematic are, for example, one-, two-, or three-story houses on Chernomorskogo Cossack Street. This whole street is almost emergency, terrible. It is clear that it is good to build there, to create infrastructure, but this street is not prestigious and no one wants to do it.
— Why are many buildings in Odessa in such a deplorable condition?
— The problem is that some structures or parts of them are damaged on many Odessa houses. They are often dismantled and removed. But after they are dismantled, it is necessary to preserve it so that the house is not destroyed further, and this has never been done here. We also have cases when a simple leaking gutter pipe, which could be changed for UAH 500, does not change for 10 years, and in the end completely destroys the facade. It turns out that what could have been done for 500 hryvnias five years ago is now poured into the city in capital repairs for 5-15 million hryvnias. This is wastefulness in the area of housing and communal services, which was not paid attention to.
— In addition to heavy precipitation, which affects the condition of houses built from shell, what else affects the collapse of old houses in Odessa?
— Someone says that this is the redevelopment of apartments by the residents themselves. I believe that this is a whole complex of factors. The most important is a monstrous attitude from the housing and communal services sector, which did not serve these homes. Then replanning. And the construction of new buildings, which are carried out next to old houses. This is important, since in order to start construction next to a historical building, the developer must provide expertise. But objectively speaking, the expertises that are provided to the relevant bodies cause great doubts. It is clear to everyone that the developer somehow negotiates and receives the necessary expertise. Further, it is quietly being built, and within a radius of 100-200 meters, all residential buildings are bursting at the seams. We face this all the time. And this lack of maintenance, redevelopment and rebuilding has been completed, the neighboring buildings have simply destroyed the houses to the point of impossibility.
— Who is responsible for the fact that another old house is falling down in the city, and its residents are left without a roof over their heads?
— I don't remember anyone in Odessa being held accountable for this. And for some reason, the officials believe that now they will "control the forests", everything will be destroyed, and then they will retire and "they will not catch up". Here, it is necessary to maintain responsibility, to catch up with such officials, to make them understand that justice will find them even after they retire. Now nobody is looking for anybody.
— Can the residents of such houses count on the help of the city?
— Now I am involved in the creation and promotion of the co-financing program, and I hope that it will be launched next year. Its essence is that the city will pay for capital repairs in a percentage ratio of 70/30. That is, 70% - the garden, and 30% - the tenants themselves. But we are not talking about an emergency fund. It should be noted right away that the emergency fund is a job worth tens of millions of hryvnias. It is clear that even if the city pays 7 million hryvnias, the remaining 3 million residents of the house will still not collect. For this, as I see it, there should be a list of houses that the city plans to restore. These will most likely be architectural monuments. On the other hand, Odessa architectural monuments are mostly of "regional importance", that is, the region is responsible for them. There should be passports for each monument, which at the moment the person also does not have. You see, the city asks, but the region does not answer.
However, I believe that if you wanted to ask normally and wanted to answer, then all this could have happened. But no one is interested in this. This will immediately show the scale of what is happening in our city.
Therefore, a state or city program is needed for architectural monuments. In the case of an emergency fund, it is expedient to restore such houses if a large number of people live there. But in most cases, not so many families live in emergency Odessa houses. Often, there are three to ten families. Therefore, large amounts of money from the budget will be poured there, not quite profitably. That's why I'm talking about developers.
— Will a certain list of old houses be created, where developers can come?
— We considered this issue at the commission meeting. Now the housing and communal services department must provide information to the capital construction department, and they will bring this issue to the next commission and provide certain areas for construction, so that we can offer it to the public and say: "here we invite developers - please settle people and build ". There is also an idea to create a working group that will deal with similar issues. It is important to organize negotiations between developers and residents and to be a third party in them so that it is mutually beneficial for everyone.
After all, it often happens that both parties want to deceive. And the developer wants to return the situation more favorably, and tenants often register dozens of people in their housing in an emergency building, in order to get many apartments later. If everything was played fairly - both this and others, and the city was present at the same time, I think that then it would be possible to achieve a constructive solution.
We need to start moving. It is clear that there will always be offended tenants who believe that their house is worse than the neighbors and that it should be done first. Therefore, because the authorities are trying to minimize the negativity on the part of the people, they leave everything as it is. And if you choose and make at least 5 houses now, then 95 others will be upset... but it won't work without it.
— Can the city count on the state's help in this matter?
— Now there are rumors that architectural monuments and historical buildings will be included in the state program "Great Restoration". The problem is that for a long time we have observed a confrontation between city and regional power. The governor did not communicate with the mayor, the mayor did not want to interact with the OGA, they did not want to send money for the needs of Odessa, because Odessa is like a second state. And this happened for a very long time. Trukhanov communicates with Hrynevetsky only now. And before that, due to the lack of interaction, the city really suffered. Because the region could allocate money, knock them out, and Kyiv could help, and state programs could operate on the territory of the city, and some iconic objects would have already been renovated in the last 5-10 years... Because there was no interaction between two people, Odessa suffered.
Interviewed by Viktoria Synko
