Tatiana Nalitch

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April 9, 2017

Friends,

It recently transpired that a good many quite progressive consumers and producers of the news haven’t entirely understood that the so-called law bill on renovation (No. 120505-7), which the press has dubbed the “five-storey apartment building law” doesn’t exactly deal with five-storey apartment buildings.

It deals with everything. With any residential building (brick, pre-engineered, and prefab) containing any number of storeys (three, five, nine, seventeen, etc.). If the law is passed, then later it will also be applied to any city, not just to Moscow.

This is what it’s about. If a city feels like grabbing the block where your building is located (a quiet spot with a leafy-green courtyard, five to seven minutes from the subway, in walking distance of shops, a stadium, playgrounds, a school, a kindergarten, an outpatient medical clinic), it will do it. You will be supplied with one option: an apartment of the same size, wherevever they want to send you. If you’re not okay with that, the court will evict you.

Read the draft law bill, please. It’s on the State Duma’s website.

If you have questions, the website zanashdom.ru and the Facebook group Muscovites against Demolition are there to help you.

The picture, above, summarizes the contents of the bill. [See the translation of the diagram, below.*]

Tell your friends about it. This is really serious.

UPDATE. Today, April 10, the Federation Council proposed applying the Moscow law bill to the entire country.

*What does resettlement under the new law threaten?

Old Law New Law Only dilapidated and hazardous buildings are demolished. Any residential building in an urban renewal block can be demolished (even if it’s a brick building and nine- or twelve-stories high.) The law does not describe what residential buildings can be demolished. Residents are informed a year before resettlement. You have two months to think it over, after which you are evicted by court order, which cannot be appealed. You choose from three types of apartments. You take the first apartment you are shown. Possible monetary compensation. No monetary compensation possible. You get an apartment of equal value in exchange. You are given a comparable apartment (an apartment of the same size). Apartment near a park, in a quiet, familiar neighborhood. Seventeen-story concrete building in an industrial district with violations of safety and sanitary rules and regulations. (They are permitted under the new law.)

The Bottom Line

You pay for renovations and moving costs.

If you sell within five years, you are obliged to pay a 13% tax.

Population density will increase by two or three times.

Translated by the Russian Reader. Thanks to Comrade AK for the heads-up