Kiseliova offers to reduce the rent for land for Mykolaiv developers to 1%

Head of the Mykolaiv City Council Commission on Legality Olena Kiseliova, archival photo of NikVesti

Head of the Legality Commission, head of the «European Solidarity» faction in the city council Olena Kiseliova proposes to reduce the rent rate for land for Mykolaiv developers from 3% to 1%.

She voiced such an idea during the commission meeting on June 25, writes NikVesti.

«When we talk about exempting taxpayers from land tax and real estate tax, we forget that businesses and developers in Mykolaiv do not use either land tax or real estate tax, or rather partially. But he pays rent for communally owned plots of land. And this fee is quite large for us, if you count it, relative to the normative-monetary assessment, which grows every year. Even during martial law, the indices change, the regulatory monetary assessment increases, and the amount of the rent automatically increases,» explained Olena Kiseliova.

She proposes to reduce the percentage of rent for communally owned land to city developers to 1%.

«The construction industry, namely construction as such, in Mykolaiv for certain reasons is in a state of stagnation. The construction industry in Mykolaiv did not work in 2023, 2024, and maybe, God forbid, it will start working in 2025. But this requires stability and economic justification. But when there are no apartments for sale in the city, and the rental rate costs millions, then an imbalance occurs. And we will lose our developer in the city, and then we will look for some investors there. The question of the relevance of equalizing the land tax rate and the rental rate lies even in the area of antimonopoly legislation, which clearly states that there cannot be two different rates under the same conditions. That is, the developer cannot have a land fee of either 1% or 3%, depending on the conditions under which he uses or owns this land. The Mykolaiv City Council should eliminate such discrimination,» said Olena Kiseliova.

Members of the city council's legality committee supported such an initiative. The Finance Department was instructed to prepare a draft decision on making changes to the already existing draft decision on determining the amount of rent for land and to make changes in the part of replacing 3% with 1% for land under current construction.

«That is, these are plots of land on which something is being built. Regardless of what is being built there: a hospital, a hotel, a residential building. Everything must be built and the rent rate must be 1%,» added Olena Kiseliova.

Prior to this, deputies of the Mykolaiv City Council appealed to the Cabinet of Ministers and People's Deputies with a request to allocate a subsidy in the amount of 479.93 million hryvnias from the state budget to exempt businesses from paying taxes for 2024.

Prior to that, Mykolaiv businessmen appealed to the editorial office of NikVesti, asking the authorities to revise tax rates and reduce the rent for the use of land by 50% for the possibility of conducting trade activities.

In the letter, they complained that doing business in wartime conditions is survival, particularly because of high taxes.

Mykolaiv residents also cited the example of Kharkiv, where certain categories of citizens were exempted from paying rent. The Mayor of Kharkiv, Ihor Terekhov, then explained that this would reduce the burden on tenants, who actually did not have the opportunity to use the rented property for its intended purpose.