On November 22, at 11.30 a.m., a press conference organized by the Association “Protection of Injured Investors of Gostomel” was held in the press center of the Interfax-Ukraine news agency.
The participants were invited to participate:
The head of Gostomel military administration and the director of “Avtomagistral-Pivden” LLC did not appear in the press center hall.
The event was also attended by representatives of local media, as well as an online broadcast, which was watched by more than 300 media representatives.
The following issues were discussed during the press conference:
Human rights activist Victor Medvid began his story with the presentation of the affected party – two investors Lidia Khersun and Hanna Borshevska, who many years ago invested their money in the construction of capital housing and a detailed description of the reasons why they still cannot receive the specified housing, as well as other 130 families.
“The main problem is that the local government is not actually functioning. Due to the outbreak of the war, when the head of the Gostomel village council was killed, and after that, a military administration was established by presidential decree, the local self-government was actually suspended. Thus, the deputies are not performing their duties at the moment and the executive committee is not working,” said Mr. Medvid regarding the key reason for the crisis situation with housing construction in the Gostomel community.
“Since the newly appointed persons (employees of the military administration) have been working for only a few months, it was, I think, very difficult for them to understand all the issues of the community. In those problems, including the chronic problems of Gostomel, and given the lack of specialization, as, in principle, there should be businessmen, legal experts, etc., these people do not belong to these categories, and are trying to do everything “by force“: using force and not paying attention to the norms of the law and violations of the rights of individuals and legal entities. Of course, there is some justification for these actions: the fact that there is a war and quick decisions are needed, etc. But we need to be very careful to implement the necessary decisions so as not to harm,” the human rights activist stressed.
“There is a good enough factor that many outside observers, and other developers, and investors, and government officials – all were convinced that it is impossible to protect the rights, in this case, of the affected investors – individuals and legal entities – under martial law. It should be noted that this is not true. Indeed, this is problematic, as in fact, there are abuses by some persons, there is a “factor of the executor”, when the decrees of the President and the decrees of the Head of the military regional administration are not properly implemented. To be more precise, they are executed, but with relevant violations, and the violators refer to their leadership, in fact discrediting the leadership of the state, the leadership of the region, which is certainly unacceptable,” said Mr. Medvid.
“At the same time, the positive aspect is that the central state authorities – the Ministry of Regional Development, the regional military administration, where there are proper specialists who work professionally and are able to understand the situation in order to find the right legal solution. And now we have come, in principle, to resolve this conflict in a positive way in order to provide both affected investors and IDPs who are waiting for temporary housing in the modular town,” expressed his gratitude to the Head of the Kyiv Regional Military Administration Oleksiy Kuleba, First Deputy Dmytro Nazarenko and Head of the Department of Urban Development and Architecture Yaroslav Yanovych.
After Mr. Medvid explained the situation as to why the project of construction of residential buildings in Gostomel, which was launched more than 10 years ago, was constantly suspended, and why now there is a problem with providing 130 people, approximately 500 people with housing, due to the illegal actions of the head of the Gostomel military administration, representatives of the families of the affected investors also took the floor.
“In 2007, I invested money in the purchase of an apartment. Here is a certificate of payment. It has been 15 years since I invested the money, but I have not received anything. No apartment, no money. We were promised, constantly promised that we will be completed. We appealed, wrote, everything reached the military administration and everything was closed there. Now Mr. Victor (Vitruvia LLC) has bought and promised to finish our houses. We can say that he is our last hope,” says Lidia Khersun, an affected investor.
After the speech of the lawyer and representative of Vitruvia LLC Liudmyla Voytovych, who briefly told about the actions taken by the affected investors and the developer company, namely effective attempts to resolve the land conflict in the courts, Mr. Medvid shared his experience with other companies on how to protect the rights of investors even in times of war.
He noted that, first of all, a comprehensive legal approach led to a positive result.
“Many investors are afraid to invest in Ukraine because it is quite difficult to protect their rights. We have shown a good example: in 2 months we got positive court decisions, proper reaction of Bucha and Kyiv regional police, etc.”, – said the human rights activist.
Among the effective tools that helped to resolve the situation with the construction, he stressed the publicity – involvement of all victims in the protection of their rights, journalists, activists, residents of the territorial community and prompt appeal to the leadership of the region.
He also expressed hope that the preliminary agreements with the leaders of the Kyiv Regional Military Administration will be enough to resolve the housing issue for the benefit of both parties, both 500 affected investors and more than 100 IDPs who are waiting for the opportunity to move to the modular town.
Read more about the press conference:
More information about the situation can be found in the group “Protection of Gostomel Investors” and on YouTube channel,
where video evidence of illegal actions of the head of the Gostomel VA, the developer company “Avtomagistral-Pivden”, etc. is published.
borshevska, khersun, voitovich, Гостомель, Медвідь
