Tag Archives: residential development

Helping developers

“Helping developers” (“Zastroyshchiku pomogli”), Ekspert Ural 6 (408), 15 February 2010. 1 July 2010 http://www.expert.ru/printissues/ural/2010/06/news_zasrtoischiku_pomogli/.

Report on the Ekaterinburg city Duma’s decreasing the rates on yearly taxes paid by developers owning land plots occupied by multi-story buildings, from 0.1% to 0.06% of the land’s Cadastral value. This will affect 108 privately-owned land plots in the city (the largest portion of which are held by development firm “Renova-Stroygrupp”), including many in the sizable Akademicheskii region (9,000 m2) under development now. This will free up vast amounts of money for many firms: taxes incurred by Akademicheskii developers will drop from 52 to 31 million rubles, for instance; small firms will benefit, too. Some are raising their voices against the “privileges” (e.g. special buy-out prices) being afforded to large developers, mistrusting Duma deputies’ claims that the Akademicheskii region is primarily being built for accessible, low-cost housing, or alternately, that it will catalyst greater economic growth in the region.

Note: Other various articles (since February) have reported the general success of the first Akademicheskii regions to open.

Braverman’s Land Patrol

Stupin, Ilya. “Braverman’s Land Patrol” (“Zemel’nii patrul’ Bravermana”), Ekspert 41, 26 October 2009, 28-34. 28 June 2010 http://dlib.eastview.com.ezproxy.middlebury.edu/browse/doc/20828585.

An examination of the federal government’s practice of distributing seized land in auctions to developers via the Residential Construction Development assistance fund (RZhS Fund).  The new government organization, an initiative of Medvedev’s aimed at creating a renewed market for construction, has begun seizing land from agricultural institutes on grounds of underuse.  Developers in Tyumen’, Kirov, Cheboksarakh, and Kursk have already begun leasing these lands, promised the opportunity to privatize the land after 9-11 years of use.  The article criticizes the RZhS Fund institution as short-sighted, as it is so far unclear as to who will consist the buyers and renters in this new, real-estate-flooded residential building market.  Although, both RZhS Fund head Aleksandr Braverman and construction business heads credit the Fund’s creation with the streamlining of bureaucratic processes and incentivizing of developers’ building-up and eventually privatizing the plots.  Controls on where developers can set rent rates, as well as insufficient budgetary funds allocated for the RZhS count among the Fund’s problems.

Quoting from an interview with Kirov Oblast governor, Nikita Belikh, the second half of the article examines what may be the RZhS’s greatest weakness: a lack of a central region development plan and poor cooperation with the regions in which these infrastructure-less lands are being auctioned.

Land seized from Ekaterinburg developers

“Land seized from Ekaterinburg developers,” (“U ekaterinburgskikh zastroyschikov otobrali zemlyu”), Ekspert Ural 26 (382), 6 June 2009. 1 July 2010 http://www.expert.ru/printissues/ural/2009/26/news_nash_dom/.

Report on ZAO Nash Dom losing two land plots that Sverdlovskii arbitration courts ruled had been improperly divided up by the city administration.  The land, nearly 42,000 m2 now returned to the city, was transferred in spring of 2007 by decision of the Ekaterinburg mayor; the courts noted that by law, after October 1, 2005, transfer of land was only legal through an auction.  Although the Land Code does provide that lands included in contracts drawn-up before the 2005 cut-off could be transferred no later than March 1, 2007, since the actual lease agreement had been signed neither by Nash Dom nor by the city, the agreement made by both parties in 2005 did not hold up against the general prosecutor.

Nash Dom must now return the 79 million rubles to investors in the projects planned for the land’s development, as well as face the lost 130 million rubles already spent in the preparation of the land.  Representatives of the company say they will file for compensation of these monies if the lands are returned to the city.  In Ekaterinburg, there are 200 other property transactions that could be disputed by the general prosecutor in the same way; these are the seventh/eighth substantial plots seized as such.

Land cadaver

“Land cadaver” (“Zemel’niy kadavr”), SmartMoney 22 (112), 23 June 2008. 12 July 2010 http://www.vedomosti.ru/smartmoney/article/2008/06/23/5760.

On the situation of unused state-owned land in the capital.  The Gosduma under the auspices of Medvedev has passed a new law (on the Assistance Fund for Residential Construction Development) aimed at redistributing currently unused federal lands that are the most valuable for residential development (as construction lands or as lands for construction material factories).  Out of the 10,000 most attractive hectares, half are located in settled areas, many of which are in Kaliningrad.  A special commission will assess whether or not suspected lands are being used, but the criteria for such categorization and seizure are not delineated in the law.

In one case with the Russian Academy of the Sciences (RAN), whose lands (under permanent perpetual use, according to Vikiteka at http://ru.wikisource.org/wiki/Устав_Российской_академии_наук) are threatened by the new law, RAN proposed to Putin directly to construct residential buildings for young scientists in order to avoid a supposedly temporary restructuring takeover by the state company “Rostekhnologiya;” nonetheless, in April 2009, operations on these lands were expected to be frozen by a special order of the administration, and then after the passage of the new law, will most likely be given over to the Land Fund or directly to the region.  (An order regarding this freeze of RAN lands from the Kremlin appeared on the Federal State Cadastre website on 30 July 2009 at http://r41.kadastr.ru/news/media/999725/; the first of these lands were to be put up for auction in November, according to http://www.nep08.ru/agroprom/news/2009/10/09/fond_rzhs/).

Difficulties with disagreements over fair compensation and with insufficient monies in the Moscow Department of Land Resources are described, although the new law is expected to inject new momentum and resources into the coffers of available, valuable lands; within the week, first vice-director of the department Oleg Ryzhkov planned to send notices to involved lands.  Some of these Moscow lands will be seized for but small roadway expansions, though seizures for transport were not intended to be enabled by the law.  The fate of a 500-hectare plot in Kaliningrad under military ownership is also discussed.