Green arbitrary to be legalized

Green areas became the risk group. Government deregulation reached Ukrainian parks. Intending to facilitate Ukrainian business the Cabinet of Ministers in its resolution No. 349 (“On introduction of changes to the Procedure for removal of trees, shrubs, lawns, and flower beds in settlements”) simplified the procedure of removal of green plants in settlements for developers. Now the construction developers do not have to receive an order for cutting down trees from local authorities, it is only sufficient to let the Architectural Inspection know about the launch of construction works. Before this developer could only cut down a tree after receiving an approval in the form of local government decision on land allotment and after the executive committee would issue a warrant for the cutting, for this the developer would have to pay compensation to the local budget.

“When local government allocated land they already understood that there will be some changes with green areas. Today, if a developer wants to cut down trees he only needs to notify the Architectural Inspection about the launch of construction works,” said Oleksandr Ihnatenko, director of the Department at the Ministry of Regional Development.

Tetiana TYMOCHKO, head of the All-Ukrainian Ecology League:

“The attack on the green space and on the protecting of the natural environment began in 2009 when the law ‘On Regulation of Urban Development’ was being drafted. It gave the green light to the property developers because such thing as ecological expertise was completely terminated. In order to make this law work there were 28 different documents issued later, and this decree was a part of it. But, in reality, this decree meant final destruction of any cautions about preserving the environment. Developers can cut down and destroy green plantings without taking any responsibility for it. It would lead to environmental degradation.

“In the past four years the number of green areas in Kyiv went down to only around 12 percent of what it used to be. Now there is the process of total deforestation of greenery taking place in all Ukrainian cities. Under the pretext of simplifying the permit system we are now witnessing a total assault on the environment and its destruction within city limits. There is no official data on the areas of greenery. However, according to some estimates in 2005 the total area of green space was 468,000 hectares, 132,000 hectares of which was the area of green space. After seven years this figures decreased respectively to 320,000 hectares and 80,000 hectares.”

Tetiana YAKOVENKO, lawyer:

“The changes to the CMU No.1045 ‘On approving the removal of trees, shrubs, lawns, and flower beds in settlements’ adopted on April 11, 2012 are the continuation of the, so-called, policy of facilitating economic activities. But taking into account the fact that Ukrainian people, to put it mildly, are not aware of how to do business in civilized manner, the lawmakers gave the legitimate right for arbitrary actions. Thus, now construction sites of the 1-3 categories of complexity can appear like mushrooms after a rain: one buys a plot of land, decides to build a house there, sends a ‘letter’ to the local authorities with a message about it and goes to cut down trees. Now neither local authorities, nor the Architectural inspection, who filed a declaration of commencement of construction works by this developer is not able to stop the destruction of ‘living nature,’ because within its authorities it performs the state control over compliance with the law… and now it is all legal…”