₴1.7 million from the Mykolaiv budget was spent on a new road to 3 private cottages on the banks of the Bug

Oleksandr Bereza, Head of the Administration of the Central District of Mykolaiv, illustration by NikVesti

The administration of the Central district of Mykolaiv spent 1.7 million hryvnias on the construction of a new road in the dead end of the coastal private sector, where 3 cottages are located in the Soliani microdistrict.

This purchase was discovered by the NikVesti journalist during the monitoring of the use of public finances for the material «Mykolaiv District Administrations: Why are they needed and how do the managers work?».

The road to the cottages was built in 2 stages: first, in 2023, from 38 Novoodeska Street to 11/4-A Berehova Street for 994.5 thousand hryvnias, and recently, in August of this year, from 11/4-A Berehova Street to 11/4 Berehova for 728.5 thousand hryvnias.

The road along Berehova was repaired in 2 stages during 2023-2024, NikVesti infographic

NikVesti journalists visited the place and found out that the new road leads to three private cottages on the banks of the Southern Bug River.

At the same time, a gate with an automatic opening mechanism is installed in the middle of the road. During the visit, they were open, but the actual fact of installing a gate in the middle of a public road, which was built at the expense of the budget, may be a violation. According to clause 15.15 of the Road Traffic Rules, it is prohibited to install objects that obstruct traffic on the carriageway.

The length of the constructed road was approximately 235 meters, the total cost of the works under two tenders was 1 million 723 thousand 117 hryvnias.

The gate, which is installed along the road along Berehova Street before the passage to the cottages, photo NikVesti

Dead end, where the road leads along Berehova Street in Mykolaiv, photo NikVesti

We asked Oleksandr Bereza, the head of the Administration of the Central District of Mykolaiv, for a comment, and asked him how he determines where new roads need to be built, and what priority to use the budget for these needs of the community.

In his explanations, he said that he received and listened to a small delegation of local residents who wanted justice in the problem of access to their cottages.

Almost 10 years ago, in 2015, the Department of Housing and Communal Services of Mykolaiv ordered work on strengthening the slope and the bank for 2.7 million hryvnias. The works were performed by Mykolaivmiskbud LLC.

When deciding on the financing of the road along this street, Oleksandr Bereza reported that at that time the heavy equipment of the contractor, who was engaged in fortification, damaged the road along Berehova Street.

Before that, as Oleksandr Bereza points out, the local residents built this road on their own and it would be fair for them to rebuild it.

«Residents appealed even before the start of a full-scale invasion. The fact is that at one time and with their own efforts they made a concrete road there.

And then there was a problem with the fact that landslides started there from the old cemetery. This is an long-standing story. There, a whole ecological disaster was looming, because there the old cemetery and houses began to slide into the river.

The city implemented a project to strengthen this slope, there was a whole complex of works. And the trucks that performed these works destroyed the covering that people made with their own hands. It could not withstand this technique.

Then the delegation of residents — actually, there aren't that many of them already — raised the question of justice,» Oleksandr Bereza said.

How Oleksandr Bereza explains the repair of the new road near the cottages, NikVesti infographic

With the help of the YouControl service, sources from the Mykolaiv City Hall, as well as extracts from the State Register of Property Rights to immovable property, the NikVesti publication established the owners of the plots of land and three cottages along the repaired road in the dead end of the coastal zone, which probably could have been part of delegation of local residents, which was reported by Oleksandr Bereza.

• One of the cottages used to belong to the mother-in-law of a well-known Mykolaiv businessman, whose company for many years continues to receive contracts from Oleksandr Bereza for manual cleaning of the roadsides. Currently, the house has been transferred to another person, who is also related to the above-mentioned businessman, as they used to have joint ventures.
• Another one of the cottages belongs to the wife of one of the former deputies of the Main Directorate of the National Police of the Mykolaiv region. Currently, he also holds a leadership position in another law enforcement agency.
• The next cottage belongs to one of the leaders in the structure of the State Emergency Service of Ukraine in the Mykolaiv region. On his plot of land, he has a large solar power plant worth half a million hryvnias, according to the declaration in the NACP register.

We do not specify the names of the owners of the houses, since there is no direct public evidence that they influenced or forced Oleksandr Bereza to make a decision on the construction of a road to their property at the expense of the city budget of Mykolaiv.

The new road along Berehova Street, photo NikVesti

Cottages on the banks of the Southern Bug, photo NikVesti

The new road along Berehova Street in Mykolaiv, photo NikVesti

The repaired road in the coastal private sector in the Soliani microdistrict, September 2024, photo NikVesti

We will remind, the head of the administration of the Central district of Mykolaiv, Oleksandr Bereza, criticized the work of utility workers in the Polish city of Wroclaw, who are carrying out capital repairs of several blocks.

Oleksandr Bereza was also the one who justified the felling of perennial blue Christmas trees near the Mykolaiv city hall building, linking the destruction of trees with decommunization.

Read also the article NikVesti «Routes of Oleksandr Bereza: What urban problems does the head of the Tsentralnyi district run through».