The Moscow Urban Renewal Initiative () is a vast public works program commissioned by Mayor of Moscow Sergei Sobyanin and Russian president Vladimir Putin. It began in 2017 and is expected to be completed in 2032. The plan includes the demolition of 5,171 dilapidated housing structures in Moscow, colloquially known as khrushchevka, their replacement with modern high-rise residential structures, and the relocation of 1.6 million city residents.
The Molzhaninovsky District of the city became the first district of the capital where the Moscow Urban Renewal Initiative was completed. The success of the program has led to its adoption in other cities and it was included in the updated edition of the Town Planning Code of the Russian Federation. The plan has at times been met with fierce opposition. When completed, it will radically change the physical form and quality of housing in Moscow. The Initiative is being financed through a mix of public and private sector funds.
History The mass resettlement and demolition of five-story houses from the period of early panel housing construction, known as khrushchevka, was started by Moscow Mayor, Yuri Luzhkov in the 1990s and was carried out as part of the "Program for the Comprehensive Reconstruction of Five-Story Building Areas of the First Period of Industrial Housing Construction." As part of the Luzhkov program, the city expanded plans to resettle and demolish 1,722 structures. The work was carried out by private developers under investment contracts with the city. Amendments to the Land Code adopted in 2007 hampered the work of contractors, obliging them to go through competitive procedures to obtain sites. Due to the 2008 financial crisis, many builders were unable to fulfill their obligations to the city. As a result, the Moscow authorities decided to complete the program with the help of direct funding from the city budget.
The issue of continuing the demolition of the deteriorating panel housing stock was again raised in February 2017 at a meeting of the Council of Moscow Municipalities with the participation of Sergei Sobyanin. On February 13, deputies of the Moscow City Duma discussed the need for a new program, including a series previously recognized as "unbearable", and on February 17, members of the Public Chamber of the City of Moscow addressed the mayor with this proposal. At a meeting with Sergei Sobyanin on February 21, 2017, Vladimir Putin instructed the Moscow mayor to continue the resettlement of five-story buildings. Sobyanin highlighted to Putin at that time that the city budget allowed the city to start a new program and lamented the difficulties that the city authorities encountered in the early implementation of Luzhkov's program. The mayor noted that the current civil and urban planning legislation limited the possibility of resettlement of structures not at urgent risk of collapse and asked the president to assist in changing the regulatory framework.
Several sources connected with the mayor's office told Forbes magazine that the prerequisite for the rapid start of the renovation program was the desire of the city administration to avoid the redistribution of Moscow budget revenues in favor of regions with higher debt loads. While talking to journalists, Natalya Zubarevich, Chief Researcher at the Institute for Social Policy of the Higher School of Economics, noted the feasibility of this scenario, since only in 2016 did the income of the consolidated budget of Moscow increase by 188 billion rubles. The interlocutors of the publication also noted that a large-scale renovation program will allow Moscow to attract investment in the construction and related industries.
On March 10, United Russia State Duma deputies Irina Belykh, Vladimir Resin, Nikolay Goncharov, and Gennady Onishchenko submitted to the lower house of parliament a draft law establishing the features of the renovation of the housing stock in the capital of the Russian Federation. The law was popularly called the "Law on Renovation". Subsequently, Mikhail Blinkin, head of the HSE Institute for Transport Economics and Transport Policy, called the publication of the first version of the bill a "set-up": the bill had numerous flaws and became the object of criticism from lawyers and specialists in urban planning and housing policy. Among the critics of the document was the Public Advisory Council under the Moscow City Duma, which noted in an official report that the bill was contrary to the Constitution and other laws, was potentially economically inexpedient, and fraught with negative social consequences.
The bill was discussed in the working group of deputies of the State Duma and representatives of the City Hall. On April 17, some of the changes recommended by critics were adopted by the authors. On April 20, the bill was adopted in the first reading with 397 votes in favor and 4 against. The document was finalized by a team led by the head of the Duma Committee on Housing Policy and Housing and Public Utilities Galina Khovanskaya. During parliamentary hearings in the Duma, a working group was formed to finalize the bill, which included representatives of factions and citizens, including critics of the renovation project. In total, members of parliament and government proposed 144 amendments to the document, of which 90% were accepted, about 20 were rejected. On June 9, the bill passed its second reading. From the first reading to the third, the bill doubled in volume, as its text was supplemented by social guarantees like those enshrined in the Moscow law “On additional guarantees of housing and property rights of individuals and legal entities in the course of renovation of the housing stock in the city of Moscow”, adopted on May 18. On June 14, the bill was adopted in the third reading: 399 deputies voted in favor of it, two against, and one abstained from voting. On June 28, the bill was considered and approved by the Federation Council. On July 1, the law was signed by Russian president Vladimir Putin.
In 2017, "renovation" was chosen as the main word of the year by a Russian language council. Journalists associated it with the resettlement process, which affected millions of Muscovites.
Implementation of the program
The initial Moscow Urban Renewal Initiative plan included the demolition of 7,934 structures and the resettlement of 1.6 million people. This information was indicated in a presentation prepared for a meeting with State Duma deputies on the eve of the introduction of the bill. Between March and April, as a result of consultations with municipal deputies and house elders, a door-to-door telephone survey and monitoring of protest activity, structures in 40 districts of old Moscow and 15 settlements in the territories included in Moscow in 2011-2012 were excluded from the list. The list of houses to be included in the renovation program was compiled with the participation of a scientific council under the Department of Cultural Heritage of the City of Moscow and the social movement Archnadzor. Advocates in Moscow ensured exclusion from the program historical monuments without protected status. Houses in 40 workers' quarters built in the 1920s and 1930s were excluded from the program and marked for renovation and not demolition.
In May, the mayor's office published a preliminary list of 4,566 structures in 85 districts of the city: 1,064 in the Eastern Administrative District, 673 in the Southeastern Administrative District, 535 in the ZAO, 524 in the North-Eastern Administrative Okrug, 460 in the South-Western Administrative Okrug, 426 in the SAO, 363 in the Southern Administrative District, 340 in the Central Administrative District, 50 in TiNAO and 34 in Zelenograd. The formal criteria for inclusion were structures built between 1957 and 1968, the use of typical products of walls and ceilings, the condition and structures of a height of no more than 5 floors. In addition to buildings from the period of industrial housing construction, the list includes about 100 buildings from other years, including pre-revolutionary ones, houses from the period of the architectural avant-garde, late Stalinist buildings, and houses built according to individual projects. Between May and June 2017, the mayor's office held a vote for the inclusion of houses from the preliminary list in the renovation program among owners and tenants of apartments. Citizens could cast their vote through the application Active Citizen. To include a house in the program, it was required to collect two thirds of votes "for", for exclusion one third plus one vote "against", the votes of those who refused to participate in the voting were proportionally distributed among supporters and opponents of participation in the program.
The renovation program was supported by 4,087 structures from the preliminary list, while 452 structures opposed. In 31 districts, all houses from the list supported participation in the program, in 2 districts more than half of the structures were excluded from the program: 55% in Moskvorechye-Saburovo District and 51% in Izmaylovo District. Voting was not carried out in 7 structures from the list, because they were abandoned by residents or resettled otherwise. Of the 452 structures excluded from the program, 377 turned out to be constructed of brick. The proportion of residents of brick houses was 84% of all votes against. After studying the voting results, RBC journalists concluded that the choice of Muscovites was practically not affected by the proximity of their structures to Moscow Metro stations and political preferences in the 2013 mayoral elections. Prior to the adoption of the law on renovation, residents of structures not included in the preliminary voting list were allowed to hold meetings of owners and submit applications for participation in the program to district councils.
The preliminary lists did not include panel 9-storey houses which were written in the final version of the bill. In an interview with Komsomolskaya Pravda on May 4, Sergei Sobyanin noted that the mayor's office would consider the possibility of their demolition with the consent of the residents if the houses were included in quarterly development and dilapidated. As a result, about 100 nine-story houses were included in the renovation program. By the end of 2017, 5,171 houses were included in the renovation program. At the same time, decisions of meetings of owners on individual objects were appealed in court, and therefore this list was not final until the resolution of these cases.
Relocation procedures
The provisions of the bill guaranteed owners of apartments in buildings included in the renovation program to receive "equivalent" housing upon resettlement. This concept was first defined in the Law on Renovation and means an apartment that has a larger total area than the vacated, equal or larger living area and number of rooms. Also, an "equivalent" apartment is provided with finishing and must comply with the legislatively fixed standards of improvement. Resettlement in "equivalent" apartments will be carried out within the area where the vacated apartment is located, an exception is made for Zelenograd and the territory of New Moscow, where resettlement will be carried out within the boundaries of the administrative districts of January 1, 2017. If the apartment is not inhabited by minors, persons with limited legal capacity or incompetent citizens, the owner has the right to choose to receive equivalent housing or monetary compensation. The owner can also pay extra for getting a larger apartment, including by using maternity capital, housing subsidy or social payments. Tenants under a social tenancy agreement will receive equivalent housing and the opportunity to register it as a private property.