The chairman of the regional council demanded to intensify work on involving vacant buildings in economic circulation
The relevance of the topic, as noted by Vladimir Terentyev, Chairman of the Regional Council of Deputies, starting a serious discussion, is dictated by the presence of a large number of vacant buildings in the Vitebsk region, which need to find new owners and be put into economic circulation.
As of April 1, 2018, the Unified Register of State Property accounted for 70,624 buildings, structures, transmission devices, and isolated premises, of which more than 57 thousand are owned by cities and districts, and 13,541 are owned by the region.
It was planned to involve 297 communal property objects in economic circulation this year and to conserve 177. Based on the results of the work for three months, 28 objects, or 9% of the planned amount, have been involved in circulation. 10 buildings and structures have been demolished and dismantled, and 24 have been conserved.
The instruction of the regional executive committee to submit documents for auction bidding for more than 40 out of 189 planned objects to the regional territorial fund of state property has not been fulfilled. And this, emphasized Viktor Zaitsev, Director of the Fund, indicates low executive discipline at the local level, unsatisfactory accounting, and formalism in conducting annual inventories.
The rapporteur also called the work of the legal services of enterprises and organizations on recovering overdue accounts receivable from tenants superficial, and noted a tendency towards an increase in debt to the budget from leasing out objects.
For the fourth quarter of 2017, it increased by 23.52 thousand rubles and amounted to 113.25 thousand. According to the director of the Vitebskoblимущество fund, this fact requires immediate action from the structural divisions of the regional executive committee, city and district executive committees.
To reduce the number of unused facilities and increase the revenue part of the budget, the regional Council of Deputies delegated to the regional executive committee the authority to approve, adjust, or exclude unused or inefficiently used buildings, their parts, and land plots from the list. Such a list has been approved, and it includes 541 buildings and structures.
Assessing the current situation, Vladimir Terentyev emphasized that in certain regions and in the region as a whole, it is necessary to combine the efforts of the Councils of Deputies, the administrative and executive authorities in finding investors, creating new industries, and thus, new jobs. The Postavy district can serve as a benchmark in this process; 20 years ago, it was the most problematic in the region, with unemployment reaching 25%. Today, it is a dynamically developing region where investors are coming, and vacant buildings are actively being sold or transferred for free use for organizing production facilities.
The chairmen of the district council and district executive committee, Petr Kurto and Sergey Chepik, and the deputy chairman of the district executive committee, Irina Nesterenok, spoke about how this work is organized by the district council and district executive committee.
The peculiarity of the district, they emphasized, is the significant number of buildings and structures that remained here after the change in the deployment of military units. Buildings of closed socio-cultural facilities were added to them. As of January 1, the area of vacant premises was 32 thousand square meters, or 13.2% of the total area of all property in the district. Therefore, accounting and developing measures to reduce the number of unused buildings are among the main activities of the district executive committee and the district Council of Deputies.
Examples of the local authorities' search for investors, the sale and gratuitous transfer of vacant buildings to new owners, assistance in paperwork, and the organization of restoration work were cited in confirmation of this.
For instance, in June 2017, LLC "Myasokombinat Postavsky" was established. The district gratuitously transferred a complex of vacant buildings to it, and the executive committee specialists helped with the paperwork. Within a month, a new meat processing enterprise was registered. In May, a Moldovan investor will begin its operation. 22 jobs have already been created, and there will be 60 after the launch of the first phase. At the first stage, the amount of invested capital amounted to over 700 thousand euros.
The second major facility, the manor and park complex (Bishevsky Palace) in Lintupy, was sold to a foreign investor on the condition of opening a base for the development of agro-ecotourism with the creation of at least 25 jobs. 807 thousand dollars in investments have already been made in its restoration.
The "Postavsky Furniture Center," where door blocks have been manufactured for many years and sold in post-Soviet countries and European countries, was cited as an example of the thrifty use of vacant buildings and the creation of production facilities within them.
Participants of the presidium visited each of these facilities, as well as the day care center for the elderly of the territorial center, which was also recently located in a vacant building. They saw firsthand how what was unnecessary to previous owners can be utilized with a responsible approach.
The sale of unused property, emphasized Irina Nesteryonok, is a good source of replenishment for the district budget. Last year, it brought in almost 68 thousand rubles. At the beginning of the year, there were no arrears in rent payments to the budget for district communal property. Vladimir Terentyev also drew the attention of those present to these facts.
In conclusion, the presidium of the regional Council of Deputies noted in its resolution the insufficiency of the work of regional management bodies, city and district executive committees, and obliged them to take measures by the end of the year to involve buildings and structures included in the list in economic circulation.
Control over the implementation of the resolution is assigned to the standing commission of the regional Council of Deputies for budget and economic development issues.