The current general plan of Moscow was adopted in 1999, and in 2005 it was approved by the law “On the General Plan of the City of Moscow”. Simultaneously with the approval, a decision was made to update it, that is, to improve, which was entrusted to the Research and Development Institute of the General Plan. Responsible for the development was the deputy director of this institute, Oleg Baevsky, who, at the invitation of the CSA, gave a lecture on the new general plan on November 12.
According to Oleg Baevsky, the 1999 master plan, the first post-Soviet urban development plan, was based on outdated research from the eighties and nineties. Over the past years, Moscow's relations with the region have changed, a new town planning code was adopted, and most importantly, the city has been saturated with investments. Therefore, the old “master plan of opportunities”, focused on attracting capital, is now being reoriented to social problems. The priorities of the updated city plan are called "ecological, sanitary and technical safety of the city, preservation of cultural and natural heritage, provision of socially significant facilities and the reliability of the engineering and transport system."
In this regard, the updated master plan assumes a change in some of the "specially protected borders". Thus, the total area of "natural zones" in it has increased from 17 to 23 thousand hectares, "territory of cultural heritage objects" - from 6.9 to 10 thousand hectares, and "zones of protection of cultural heritage objects" - up to 55 thousand hectares. …
Housing is the leader among social problems. Now 40% of everything that is being built in the city is the so-called. "Investment" housing, that is, intended for subsequent sale. The updated general plan assumes an increase in the fund of social housing by at least 2 million square meters. m., making the ratio of commercial / social living space in the city equal to 40/60. As for the dilapidated housing, according to Oleg Baevsky, it is failing at what pace, that the construction industry cannot cope with it and its volume is planned to be reduced as much as possible - to 10 percent.
One of the acute problems of Moscow, Oleg Baevsky called its isolation within its own borders, which "will no longer expand", so the development of the city is possible only at the expense of internal reserves. One of these reserves is production areas beyond the Third Ring Road. Many, although not all enterprises will be decommissioned, and their territories will become the main sites for new construction, both commercial and residential. Those industries that will survive, according to Baevsky, should become examples of the integration of production, business and higher education. The peripheral zone of Moscow, in contrast to the active middle part, should become the “lungs of the city”, the role of which was previously played by the green belt around the Moscow Ring Road, which is now being actively built up both by the region and by the city in order to achieve the same economic return.
Transport congestion, a scourge of large cities, solved in a variety of ways, starting from the transition to public transport (the most striking example of Amsterdam), to the introduction of a paid entrance to the city center (London), in Moscow will be solved in several ways. For the time being, 60% of trips in the city are made by public transport, and therefore the main emphasis is concentrated on it in the general plan. One of the main reasons for the traffic obstruction in Moscow is the slow laying of metro lines - at the moment their deficit is 650 km. As Oleg Baevsky said, in the best case, there will be money only for 450. Moreover, the metro will not connect with the Moscow region, as the Moscow region wants it - “otherwise not a single Muscovite will be able to get into it”. To connect with the region, it is planned to use more actively the railway lines, which will become two-tier on the territory of the city and on which high-speed urban transport will be "put". It is also planned to sharpen more roads and bridges: the Fourth Ring Road, as well as the North and South Roads will be built.
The historic center, which has significantly changed its appearance as a result of overfulfillment of the original general plan of "possibilities", according to Baevsky, "will retain its significance" - all production will be removed from it, and construction will be concentrated outside its center beyond the third transport ring. It is these areas that have been proposed for shock development - there will be created new urban-planning ensembles, as well as "cluster elite quarters", mainly with high-rise buildings, standing on their own infrastructure, which are supposed to be located along the most developed beam - from the southwest to the northeast, that is, along the "red" line of the metro.
