On November 22, the State Duma adopted in the second reading a bill that permits the use of project documentation developed and used in the EU and other foreign countries in capital construction. As Interfax clarifies, "the use of such re-use design documentation will be possible taking into account seismic and climatic loads." In addition, the norms of the document do not apply to especially dangerous, technically complex and unique objects. This document will enter into force on April 1, 2012, and although in fact it means that the Eurocodes, which professionals have been talking about for so long, will finally work in Russia, until the news caused a special stir among experts: in addition to news agencies and the portal “Self-regulation in the construction industry”, not a single media outlet wrote about this.
On the same day, November 22, the State Duma adopted a bill allowing the authorities of Moscow and St. Petersburg to unilaterally terminate construction investment contracts. “It is obvious that the legislative initiative is connected with the close attention of the heads of the two capitals - Sergei Sobyanin and Georgy Poltavchenko - to investment projects that were launched by their predecessors,” writes Kommersant-Saint Petersburg. The reason for the termination of the contract can be both serious violations of the developer company, and a significant change in circumstances. However, according to the market participants themselves, the new law is unlikely to have a serious impact on the construction industry.
However, for one project of his predecessor, Georgy Poltavchenko nevertheless took up close. We are talking about a football stadium on Krestovsky Island, the project of which was first developed by Kisho Kurokawa, and then by Mosproekt-4. According to Novaya Gazeta SPb, at a retreat held at the long-suffering construction site, Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Kozak demanded to keep the cost of the stadium within the contract price, which was determined by the results of the competition (24 billion rubles), and said that “we need not just a modern and comfortable stadium that meets FIFA requirements, but a stadium for specific money. The imaginations of artists and architects should be limited to the specific cost of the project. Kozak also promised to create an international expert group that will work on optimizing the cost of the project, and Georgy Poltavchenko, in turn, said that if the city does not have enough money to complete the stadium, he will turn to Gazprom, which is the owner of Zenit, for help. which, in fact, this arena is being built.
Another promise related to architectural and construction activities was made by the vice-governor of the city Vasily Kichedzhi. According to the Karpovka.net portal, the official said that next year the Boris Eifman Dance Academy, which is being built on Bolshaya Pushkarskaya Street according to the Studio 44 project, will be opened, and the complex is expected to be completed in 2013. Thus, the construction of a new choreography center will take a little less than two years - a period, frankly, a record-breaking fast, but the city authorities still seriously believe that they will be able to comply with it. “St. Petersburg Vedomosti”, meanwhile, once again reminds of the fate of the most well-known long-term construction of the city - the new stage of the Mariinsky Theater, the construction of which will now be completed by Metrostroy.
In the Moscow government, a special working group, meanwhile, is developing an official concept for the development of the territory of the ZIL plant. According to "Moscow Perspective", museum funds or a student campus may be located here. However, most of the Moscow architecture and urban planning news of the past week turned out to be related to heritage. First, the results of the Moscow Restoration-2011 competition were summed up in the capital, which is described in detail by Kultura State Television and Radio Broadcasting Company and RIA Novosti. For this event, Mayor Sergei Sobyanin "guessed" the introduction of a new city law for investors - tenants of buildings that are objects of cultural heritage. As the head of the Moscow Cultural Heritage Department, Alexander Kibovsky, explained to Moskovsky Komsomolets, the capital intends to clean up the central, historical part of the city as soon as possible, and for this it needs “high-quality” investors. “The city will start leasing cultural heritage objects that require restoration, not just for such and such a time, but with the obligatory indication in the agreement of a specific term for bringing this object in order. If the tenant fulfills this obligation at the agreed time and with proper quality, then from the next day after the signing of the acceptance certificate of the restored building, a purely symbolic rent will be taken from it - 1 ruble per square meter,”the official said. Kommersant also covers the new initiative in detail.
In St. Petersburg, meanwhile, a scandal is gaining momentum, in which KGIOP, VOOPIiK and the public movement Gradozashchita are involved. The main person involved in this story was the deputy chairman of the KGIOP Aleksey Komlev. We will remind, a week ago "Gradozashchita" published the material "Destroyers of St. Petersburg. Technology of Crimes ", in which she gave a negative assessment of the activities of Alexei Komlev and his colleague Alexei Razumov, exposing them of corruption. “Aleksey Komlev and Aleksey Razumov got the opportunity, in the interests of developers, to remove monuments from the register and authorize work in security zones where new construction is prohibited,” Gorod 812 quotes this material. On the same day, VOOPIiK hastened to refute this statement by publishing on its website the material “Caution! Custom provocation is possible! " It states that the decision to demolish the buildings on the Moika Embankment was made not by Komlev, but by Vera Dementieva, who had already left the post of head of the KGIOP. “The organization concludes that the speeches of its colleagues are biased, directly stating that from their report about Komlev and the“destroyers”, the ears of some customers are sticking out,” writes Fontanka. Ru. Meanwhile, the head of the KGIOP, Alexander Makarov, having familiarized himself with the report of "Gradozashchita", promised to conduct a check on the facts set out in it, and therefore we can assume that Gradozashchita has achieved its goal.
The interest of the defenders of the historical heritage was also attracted by the situation in the Republic of Tatarstan, where the revival of the ancient island city of Sviyazhsk is in full swing. Fragments from an article by Professor Yevgeny Ignatiev and Academician Yuri Sdobnov, dedicated to the progress of the reconstruction, were posted on its website by IA Regnum. The authors of this text are rather skeptical about exactly how the revival of the ancient city is taking place: "in fact, this is just an upgrade of the infrastructure of the rural settlement of Sviyazhsk, which is happily turning into a comfortable summer cottage against the backdrop of restored monastic complexes." According to experts, at the moment “an external facade is being created, like a“Potemkin village”, so that there is something to show tourists and the federal government during the Universiade 2013 in Kazan. There is no talk of any revival of the city”.
Two large Siberian megalopolises, Krasnoyarsk and Novosibirsk, have many of their own problems, the press of which last week published several materials on the issues of urban planning. In particular, in Novosibirsk, the prospects for the reconstruction and demolition of Khrushchevs are being actively discussed. The regional program for the old housing stock is to be adopted next year, but for now one of the leading local architects, a member of the town-planning council of the mayor's office, Alexander Laptyaykin, shares his forecasts with Novosibirsk News. According to the expert, the so-called barracks fund and the private sector, against which the same five-story buildings look almost decent. Krasnoyarsk architects are concerned about why the pace of housing construction in the city is growing, while the quality of the urban environment does not change for the better. According to experts, the whole trouble is in the absence of a coherent urban planning policy and investors who are ready to “invest heavily” in projects for the integrated development of territories and landmark objects.
