ArmInfo.In the morning, residents of Lvovyan Street gathered near the Yerevan Municipality because the houses where they lived for decades will be demolished by the decision of the city authorities in order to green the area.
Citizens came to the mayor's office with the only request - to talk with the mayor of Yerevan Tigran Avinyan in order to understand in which territory the demolition and landscaping work will be carried out with the hope of a compromise solution.
In a conversation with journalists, citizens said that their houses were built on the territory of a former gardening enterprise.
Naturally, there are no documents confirming ownership. But, according to them, having repeatedly applied to the authorized bodies over the years to privatize the houses that they built with their own hands, they were refused. The latter were asked to wait while the cartographic work was carried out. It is noteworthy that despite receiving a refusal, many of them nevertheless paid property taxes; they receive notifications about fines, summonses to the army, etc. to these addresses. Over the decades, residents have landscaped these areas, resolved the issue of utilities, and paid conscientiously for electricity, gas and water. "We have always been ready and are now ready legalize our houses and pay as much as we owe to the state. If there is a question of widening the road, we are ready to provide this, if we are talking about landscaping, then we are ready to be actively involved in this work," said one of the residents of Lvovyan Street. Citizens are indignant and surprised by the fact that in the same "disputed" area, which, according to the city authorities, belongs to the Yerevan community, there are privatized apartment buildings, and another high-rise is being built , while however, they are rejected for privatization." We are asking for a status regarding both theirs and our one-story and two-story houses. Let's come to a compromise," they noted.
During the protest, residents spoke with a member of the Council of Elders from the Mother Armenia party Manuk Sukiasyan, director of the " Greening and Environmental Protection " CNPO Armen Begoyan, head of the information department of the Yerevan Municipality Taron Gevorgyan, who, after listening to the citizens, only promised to convey their request for desire meet Mayor Tigran Avinyan. As a result, the vice-mayor of Yerevan, Armen Pambukhchyan, agreed to receive the participants of the action. The meeting takes place without the participation of media representatives. On February 29, by decision of the mayor of Yerevan, work was carried out on Lvovyan Street (administrative district of Nor-Nork) to demolish 8 illegal buildings in which people had lived for 10 years or more.
Local residents noted that the decision of the capital's municipality took them by surprise. Previously, they applied to the mayor's office with applications for the privatization of houses, but there was no response. Citizens are confident that elite multi-storey buildings will be built instead of their houses. At the same time, the Yerevan mayor's office issued a statement saying that the city authorities will consider the issue of providing temporary housing to those citizens whose houses are scheduled to be demolished by the decision of the municipality.
"I think that it is not a secret for anyone that the city authorities are pursuing a policy of returning the illegally taken communal areas to the residents of Yerevan. In accordance with this, the mayor of Yerevan decided to clear communal property from illegal buildings on Lvov Street in the Nor-Nork administrative district.," noted Vice-Mayor Armen Pambukhchyan.