The problem of restoration: how do Mykolaiv residents live, whose homes were destroyed by Russia

During the two years of the Great War, Russia destroyed many residential buildings in Mykolaiv. The warm and cozy homes of the townspeople have turned into a cold pile of concrete. Already today, the issue of dismantling and restoring apartments destroyed by shelling has arisen. However, this process turned out to be somewhat longer and more complicated than expected. A vivid example of this was four houses that were hit by an enemy rocket: Admiralska 32, Krylova 54, Pohranychna 43, and Zavodska 35.

How these situations differ, why residents refuse to dismantle them and what will happen to the houses in the future — read in the NikVesti material.

ARE THE PANEL BUILDINGS NOT SUBJECT TO RESTORATION?

One of the buildings in need of restoration was a high-rise building at 54 Krylova Street. An enemy strike there took place in September 2022, and a year later the question of restoring the building arose. For this purpose, the Department of Housing and Communal Services of the City Council ordered a technical examination of the damaged building, the conclusion of which is that the seventh entrance of the multi-story building must be dismantled.

The residents of the house did not agree with this position, so they refused to give their consent for dismantling and ordered their own technical inspection. Currently, Mykolaiv residents are just waiting for its results. «Most of the apartments survived,» says Liudmila Osipishyna, a resident of the building at 54 Krylova Street.

«The conclusion about the dismantling of the seventh entrance and the repair of the sixth is not confirmed by calculations. Most of the apartments survived, they are in normal condition. In addition, both entrances are one solid block with a common foundation. They are separated from each other only by interior walls. We even have shared balconies. How can you disassemble one entrance without damaging the other?», Liudmila Osipishyna, a representative of the initiative group for the preservation of the house, explained to Ukrinform.

However, the impression that the house survived is only superficial, assures the director of the Department of Housing and Communal Services Dmytro Bezdolnyi:

«If you look at it from the outside, you can see the destruction of only the upper floors. Inside, there is a collapse of the floor up to the fifth or fourth floor, one of the risers. That is, bare walls and further failure. His external condition is not as good as it might seem.»

However, he says, if the examination is of high quality and shows that the building is subject to restoration, the only thing the department can do is order a project to restore the building and offer donors to implement it.

«But the cost of implementation will be very expensive. Many people, not understanding the subtleties, say that it is cheaper to restore than to build. It does not. Because in order to restore, it is necessary to first dismantle and then build,» added Dmytro Bezdolnyi.

However, the restoration of the high-rise building at 54 Krylova Street is complicated by the fact that it is a panel building, says Dmytro Bezdolnyi:

«Panel houses in Ukraine are not restored. There it was even adopted at the legislative level, which forbade it.»

Prior to that, the President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelenskyi, proposed to consider the possibility of removing panel houses throughout the country during the post-war reconstruction of Ukraine.

«If the war has already happened in our country, then shouldn't we consider the possibility of removing panel houses throughout the country, especially in the destroyed territories?» Volodymyr Zelenskyi said.

At the same time, the Verkhovna Rada even adopted in the first reading draft law No. 6458 «On the comprehensive reconstruction of quarters (micro-districts) of the outdated housing stock.» It is according to him that panel houses are subject to dismantling. However, the initiators of the bill explain, before that, residents must get new housing.

«Demolition of apartment buildings is preceded by the provision of an apartment in another apartment building if the developer receives consent for eviction. Otherwise, another apartment of equal value will be provided in the future building, and for the duration of the construction, relocation to the maneuvering housing stock,» the initiators of the draft law explain.

That is why residents of the 54 Krylova Street panel building, currently have the opportunity to receive housing certificates, according to Resolution No. 600 on the procedure for providing compensation for destroyed real estate objects.

«Already now people can receive compensation. The number of appeals from people about destroyed houses is constantly increasing. If a month ago there were 70 appeals, today there are already 120. Moreover, decisions on issuing certificates have already been made in Mykolaiv,» says Deputy Director of the Department of Housing and Communal Services, Ihor Nabatov.

A CHANCE FOR RECONSTRUCTION FOR THE POHRANYCHNA STREET

Residents of the building at 43 Pohranychna Street, where two entrances were destroyed, also refused to give their consent to the demolition. «Most of the building survived, and the housing and communal services department misleads the majority of residents, putting pressure on their decision to dismantle it,» say residents of the building.

«People were misled. The department changed concepts. Based on the decisions of the executive committee of Mykolaiv, it was indicated that in entrances 3 and 4 it is necessary to remove emergency structures, disassemble the destroyed apartments by the corresponding numbers and clean the third and fifth floors. We wrote an appeal at the end of May to the mayor with a request to restore the building, because most of it is intact. Out of 36 apartments that are not suitable for living, 23 apartments are intact. If during the first meetings with the DHCS, only the certificates were announced, then they began to pressure, and some people thought about it and said that it is better to take the certificates. Before that, almost 5 owners were categorically against the certificates. It turns out that while we need housing in such a dire situation, they put a cross on the house and let people beg? What do they need to dismantle the house to see the foundation? And you can't go to the basement for this, look at the basement? Not a single ceiling above the basement has cracked. They just need cheap building material. Whole slabs and blocks can be sawn. The city leadership should have minimized the tragedy that happened, went to a meeting with the people on the issue of restoration, and not lured them with certificates and pitted people against each other,» says Tetyana Goncharova, a resident of the building.

It is impossible to dismantle entrances without the consent of residents, says Deputy Director Ihor Nabatov:

«If we have at least one refusal, then we have no right to touch the house. For example, the top floor is a failure. The apartment will not hang in the air.»

It is because of this that the situation is also going to be solved by issuing residential certificates to Mykolaiv residents. The relevant decision will be made by the city council's commission for consideration of issues related to providing compensation for destroyed property, he says.

«The procedure is as follows: first they submitted an application, it was approved, they received a residential certificate, after that they canceled the ownership of the previous real estate object and exercised their right to receive the real estate object within the framework of the residential certificate. Therefore, the number of owners (apartments in destroyed buildings, note) is gradually decreasing. Accordingly, we must obtain the consent (for dismantling, note) of the owners, and if at some point there are zero, then there are no owners as such and we calmly exercise our powers,» said Ihor Nabatov.

At the same time, Dmytro Bezdolnyi, director of the Department of Housing and Communal Services, does not see any obstacles for the residents of the destroyed apartments in the building on Pogranichnaya to obtain a housing certificate:

«There is already a technical report, which says that it is unfit for habitation and must be dismantled. It's enough».

However, the situation with the house at 43 Pohranychna Street is still somewhat different from Krylova Street. First of all, «there are variations here, because the house is brick,» says Ihor Bezdolnyi. Therefore, it is possible to restore the house, but it will probably become clear after the destroyed parts are dismantled, and after an additional examination of the foundation of the building is performed. This will help to understand whether the condition of the foundation allows building new apartments on its basis, explains Dmytro Bezdolnyi.

«The end point will be delivered after dismantling. At the moment, we cannot guarantee the restoration,» he clarified and added that in case of a positive answer, in the future we can already talk about the development of the project to restore the building and the execution of the relevant works.

EXPERT'S CONCLUSION: THE HOUSE ON ADMIRALSKA CAN BE RESTORED

Another building that until recently was planned to be demolished was a residential building in the center of Mykolaiv — at 32 Admiralska Street. A Russian rocket hit it on the night of July 20, 2023. The very next day, Deputy Mayor Anatoly Petrov said that 70% of the building cannot be reconstructed and the three-story building is planned to be completely demolished.

However, at the same time, he explained that in the future the house will still be rebuilt - for this, funds will be drawn from cooperation with international donors, as well as state and local budgets.

«The first visual assessment was that half of the house definitely needs to be dismantled. You were there and probably saw that there was nothing left except a piece of wall from one part. In addition, since the building is old, the floors there are wooden and everything did not collapse together only for the reason that the apartments were two-story and some of the residents strengthened the floors with iron beams,» explained Dmytro Bezdolnyi, director of the Department of Housing and Communal Services.

However, the residents of the building did not agree with this assessment of the city authorities and decided to order their own examination. «The expert's conclusion is that the house can be restored,» said deputy director Ihor Nabatov.

«This is damage of the second category: from 41% to 80%, which corresponds to reality. The only thing is that technically they kept silent about the entrance that was destroyed. But the phrase «overhaul» implies that this entrance, in particular, must be restored,» Ihor Nabatov explained.

Residents of the house assume that it will take up to 2 years to rebuild the house. Currently, the house has to be conserved, having previously installed a temporary roof over the destroyed second and third entrances.

«The house can be restored. At the moment, the DHCS has almost everywhere sewn up the windows, roughly speaking, all the holes. It must now be conserved, for this a temporary roof must be installed over the second and third blocks, the first one having survived. We have already agreed that the contractor should come next week to install the roof. Then there is the procedure of finding a designer, it will depend on finances, a contract with a designer for restoration, and only after receiving the project and estimate, the executive committee must approve it and make a decision on financing. The first entrance, which was destroyed, will be rebuilt from scratch. It will take up to two years. I communicated with the DHCS, we agreed with them on everything, the process from them is actively ongoing, we are working in close contact,» said Viktor Zahorui, a resident of the house.

Works on the object's conservation are going to be completed by the end of this year, Ihor Nabatov assures.

Residents requested to install a roof over the destroyed house two months ago. They asked to do it during the cold season in order to prevent the complete destruction of the building.

«Now the autumn-winter period is coming, there will be rain, snow, frost. The house may collapse even more. We wrote an appeal to help us close the roof, only this question. We are not asking to rebuild the house, we are asking to make a roof — 480 square meters with two entrances. You know what kind of winters we have, this is the worst for open translation, besides, it is dangerous under the influence of temperature. The house will collapse if there is no roof. At least temporary, at least cover with a film,» Viktor Zahorui said.

In the future, the Housing and Communal Services Department intends to resolve the issue of restoring the building next year — to develop a project and find financing, says director Dmytro Bezdolnyi:

«If there is a financial opportunity, we can order design. There is a request from the state development agency, from foreign donors regarding city projects that cannot be implemented. What can the city do? Order the project and try to «sell» it to the state development agency or donors for further implementation.»

DISASSEMBLY UNDER «ZERO»

The city is currently dismantling the house destroyed by the Russians at 35 Zavodska Street. The attack on the territory of the residential sector took place in April 2022. Then, due to the attack and the power of the blast wave, three houses around were damaged: at 35/1, 35/3, 35/5. Due to the fear of being left with nothing for a long time, some residents did not give their consent to the demolition, but at the beginning of October, a general meeting was held, at which the residents received the last signature for permission to dismantle the houses.

Despite this decision, some residents continued to stay in their apartments until the utility services were completely cut off, say the parents of the resident of Pavlo's house:

«A year before the war, our son bought an apartment in this house. He stayed here until the last days, until the lights were turned off in the house, then he rented another place for himself. At the time of arrival, he was in the house, came home from work, rested, slept. Now, no one lives here for a long time, except for the homeless. In general, there was such beauty here, people lived their lives. It was so quiet, it was rare when the train made noise. It was very nice. Although the house was old, he really liked living here.»

Some time after the arrival, local things scattered around the house and in the middle of each apartment appeared: clothes, photos, household items. The territory is overgrown with grass and ragweed. Pavlo's parents said that after the incident, no one guarded the house, so property was stolen from each apartment, and homeless people settled in the building itself.

At the moment, work on the dismantling of buildings is already underway there: the equipment of a subcontractor is working there, which collects demolition waste and then delivers it to a specially designated place at the city landfill.

«Complete dismantling is underway there. People will receive compensation certificates. No recovery is planned there. This is the area where there have been repeated complaints from residents that the nearby terminal and noise are disturbing. Therefore, people will simply buy housing in other places,» explained Dmytro Bezdolnyi, director of the Department of Housing and Communal Services.

In this material, we have summarized the experience of the residents' struggle for the restoration of a number of apartment buildings in Mykolaiv, which were destroyed by shelling by Russian troops, in particular:

1. The 7th entrance of the high-rise building at 54 Krylova Street, which was damaged on September 30, 2022. It is planned either to be dismantled, as suggested by the authorities, or to be restored, as some residents want, who have already ordered an appropriate examination;
2. a five-story building at 43 Pohranychna Street, which was damaged on October 13, 2022. Here, the authorities propose to dismantle entrances 3 and 4, and to issue certificates for new housing to residents, but this also causes opposition among some of them;
3. three-story building at 32 Admiralska Street, which was damaged on July 20, 2023. Regarding this house, the local residents have already received an independent examination, which allows to restore the house without complete dismantling;
4. three three-story buildings on Zavodska Street, 35, which will be completely dismantled, and residents will receive certificates.

As we can see, currently in Mykolaiv there is no single approach to dealing with destroyed or damaged residential buildings, and each case can be unique: sometimes the authorities insist on dismantling and compensation to residents from the government, but residents have the opportunity to oppose this, however, by ordering an independent examination at own expense.

Alisa Melik-Adamyan, Yuliia Boichenko, NikVesti