As you know, in the new Urban Development Code of the Russian Federation, public hearings are spelled out as one of the most important and mandatory stages of the approval of any urban planning project. This was done following the example of European countries, where the discussion of urban planning issues with residents has long become the norm, and not a formal norm of civil law, but an effective instrument of influencing the policy of city development. This was shown, for example, by the relatively recent hearings on the Olympic construction in London or the reconstruction of the port area in Hamburg. However, Russian lawmakers, seemingly moving in the same direction and introducing proven methods of regulating urban planning activity, in fact limited themselves to a half measure - Article 18 of the City Code leaves a lot of room for the substitution of concepts, as a result of which such "hearings" seem to "approve" in reality not popular urban planning solutions.
As it turned out, there are many ways to manipulate. Alexander Karpov, director of the ECOM Center for Expertise in St. Petersburg, spoke about some that took place during the hearings on the Okhta Center project. The main task of the authorities lobbying for the project was to prevent citizens from attending the hearings. This was done by filling the hall in advance with Lenfilm extras, members of a hastily put together youth organization, and professional actors. The dialogue between the hall and the presidium was “filtered” by the ranks of the riot police, and the “free” microphone was protected by a hefty fellow captured in numerous photographs. Information about the hearings was minimal, and the very date of their holding - September 1, 9 am - was chosen in order to weed out a large number of potential participants. For the introductory exhibition, the documents, as noted by Karpov, were not provided in full, among them were forged "panoramic views" from which the skyscraper was delicately removed.
In Moscow, public hearings on the updated general plan were conducted much more correctly, but the absence of riot police and the availability of a large amount of information materials did not save the situation, since the public for the most part did not have enough knowledge to fully analyze urban planning documentation. However, as the participants of the round table rightly noted, the scenario according to which the procedure of public hearings would work in principle became clear last winter, when a public discussion of the CHA reconstruction project was launched as a test balloon. Then sensible remarks simply drowned in the general confusion. And, of course, neither the hearings nor the proposals submitted after them would have prevented the investor from “pushing through” his project, if, according to the director of the Central House of Artists Vasily Bychkov, the economic crisis had not erupted.
The chief architect of Moscow, Alexander Kuzmin, however, was very offended by these words and noticed that it was in this story that the opinion of the residents was taken into account, because as a result, in the general plan itself, the dimensions of the new building were changed, and the high-rise part disappeared altogether. "We held our public hearings honestly!" - said Kuzmin. True, a little later the chief architect made a reservation that "almost everything" was done according to the law, and he sees the main problem in the fact that the law itself is imperfect.“In Moscow it is easier to demolish an architectural monument than to cut down a tree,” the chief architect had to admit. However, according to him, he is ready to work with a different, better law, the main thing is that it should be based on federal legislation, and not be ahead of it.
If we talk about what model of public hearings modern Moscow needs, then we must admit that the Russian capital has a lot to choose from. There are at least ten different systems for coordinating urban planning projects with the interested public in the world, but in order to give preference to any of them, it would be good to first understand why Moscow needs hearings. Is this just a formality, indicating a desire to become a little more like Europe, a possible loophole for overly active developers, or is it really a valid tool for regulating urban disputes and effective urban planning?
As Alexander Karpov noted, hearings can work both only to inform the population about the project, and to collect wishes for its correction. True, in the second case, it is necessary to additionally determine the criteria by which certain wishes will be taken into account - it is clear that the desire to answer every complaint of the townspeople can paralyze the implementation of any project. Hearings can also be held on an advisory basis and, finally, be a referendum. Scientific director of the Research Institute of Transport and Roads, Mikhail Blinkin, spoke about the model that is currently working in London. Here, not grandmothers who come to complain about the leaking ceiling are involved in the public discussion, but "well-structured subjects", that is, those who are interested in the project not only sincerely, but also professionally - for example, the owners of the real estate on the site, investors, environmentalists, members of the local heritage conservation society, retailers, etc. Those who, due to their duty, do not understand the nuances of urbanism, hire lawyers and planners, and this allows us to translate the discussion into a professional plane, and it is the development of the district as a whole that becomes the subject of discussion.
Valery Panov, Deputy Chairman of the State Duma Committee on Construction and Land Relations, noted that as a result of the uncontrolled evolution of hearings in Russia, professional lawyers are also increasingly entering the arena of public discussion of projects. Professor of Moscow Architectural Institute Vyacheslav Glazychev did not agree with this argument, believing that our spontaneous battles for heritage sites are still very far from the experience of Vancouver and London.
And if so, Vasily Bychkov joined the discussion, it remains either to impose a moratorium on any construction in the center, or to try to amend the current law. The majority of the round table participants agreed with the last proposal. First of all, in their opinion, it is necessary to prescribe various procedures for considering such documents that are completely different in typology and in scale, such as a master plan aimed at the development of the entire city, and the rules for land use and development (LZZ), which are a set of specific proposals and norms. separate areas. Accordingly, the discussion of the first is, most likely, the business of the scientific and expert community, but the second is just the residents. And in this context, the participants of the round table once again recalled the recent hearings on the updated general plan of Moscow, when the townspeople, who were not indifferent to the future of their districts and districts, were actually forced to study the basics of general design in order to understand the information presented.
Another proposal of the experts is to introduce a mandatory independent examination of the provisions of the general plan and the PZZ, which would precede the hearings. There is an expertise even now, but its recommendations have no legal force, although an unbiased assessment (and, possibly, criticism) of a specialist, undoubtedly, is sometimes capable of giving the project more than dozens of appeals from indignant, but not seeing an alternative solution of the townspeople. According to the president of the national guild of urban planners Maxim Perov, in order for such an assessment to be taken into account by developers without fail, it will be necessary to amend the City Code.
Undoubtedly, the process of holding public hearings itself needs certain improvements, which today - if we count the interval between the publication of materials and the adoption of the project by the final instance - can take up to six months. Such a delay is unlikely to benefit the city, since many investors manage to demolish the monument and start construction during this time. Representatives of the Arkhnadzor public movement also made specific proposals regarding the procedure for holding the hearings. They consider it necessary to lay out all the documentation on the project under discussion on the Internet, to design the website and exhibitions with infographics that are understandable to non-professionals, and, based on the results of the hearings, to hold round tables with the participation of experts. Arkhnadzor also recalled an amendment to the law on cultural heritage objects made to the Duma, which prescribes the institution of public discussions when objects are excluded from the register or their category is changed. True, the fate of this initiative remains a mystery to everyone. In order to prevent such a fate from overtaking proposals to improve the procedure for public hearings, the roundtable participants decided to create a special working group that will track the fate of all necessary amendments to the City Code.
