Anna Kyriy, deputy head of the Architectural Chamber of NSAU, in an interview with i-ua.tv journalists told in detail, what negative consequences may be caused by its adoption in the second reading. Briefly explain the most important.
Anna Kyriy - architect, deputy head of the Architectural Chamber of the National Union of Architects of Ukraine, founder of Anna Kyriy Architectural Design Group LLC
Corruption risks
According to Kiriy, the adoption of draft law No. 5655 may mean the creation of new corruption schemes, as it will allow manual intervention in the electronic system.
"The consequences are scary to imagine. This is a complete destruction of trust both within the state and among our international partners," she says.
Protection of the rights of developers
The main "innovation" of the draft law is the transfer of urban planning control to private structures. Developers will be able to create such companies to control themselves and, according to Kiriy, this private control will work in a conflict of interest and protect the one who pays the money. Such tools make it impossible to bring the developer to any responsibility, because neither the community nor other market participants will be able to write a complaint to the Ministry of Regions and initiate a construction inspection.
Advantages for monopolists
Separately, the draft law stipulates that an authorized person from private urban planning control must have a liability insurance contract in the amount of 3 to 5 million euros in order to carry out his activities. Because of such large sums, small developers will not be able to create private urban planning control companies and will be forced to bow to large developers to conclude a binding contract for urban planning control with their structures.
"Thus, the draft law proposes a scheme for controlling the market by a limited circle of developers."
Risks for architects
Separately, the architect emphasizes that liability insurance in the draft law is provided only for authorized persons of urban planning control and expert organizations. No insurance for project developers. In particular, the architect or engineer or the company they work for is not insured. At the same time, it is precisely for the developers of project documentation, those who are not subject to insurance, that significant amounts of fines are provided for formal violations, and such fines will be imposed by the Ministry of Regions.
"Each developer tries to include in the contract for the development of project documentation a clause when the author's property rights are transferred to him. This is already presented as a mandatory condition for receiving an order. That is, if the author does not want to transfer the rights, then the contract will not be signed with him. But today the architect can still refuse such conditions. With Bill 5655, they want to make it mandatory for everyone. If you don't want to make changes at the request of the developer, you will be replaced by someone else, having copyright under the contract. Such changes discriminate against honest architects and motivate those who, for money, draw whatever the developer wants. And it should be the other way around," says Kiriy.
Hiding the text of the draft law
The expert also expresses concern that the text of the draft law is not publicly available and society does not have the opportunity to read it, although the parliamentary committee recommended it for adoption in the second reading on December 28, 2021.
"What conclusions can be drawn? The state simply does not need this industry. The authorities do not see architecture as a field. Only square meters: cheap, without taste and respect for people. Just to build quickly, and no one cares about the quality of the built and the quality of the environment," Kyriy concludes.
Main photo source: RastislavSedlak/Getty Images
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