Court over 10 billion: how Kyiv City Council is simulating a fight over 375 ha of land in Troieshchyna

Court over 10 billion: how Kyiv City Council is simulating a fight over 375 ha of land in Troieshchyna

The Commercial Court of Kyiv will today continue to decide the fate of 375 ha of land in the Desnianskyi district of the capital, which is estimated at about 10 billion hryvnias.

This land was registered to the agricultural LLC “Nova Ukraina” as a right of permanent use in 2020 – without a decision of the city municipality and thanks to a private notary. Formally, Kyiv City Council is now trying to return this land to communal ownership, but civic activists suspect the municipal lawyers of playing into “Nova Ukraina’s” hands by filing an openly weak lawsuit and ignoring court hearings. Interestingly, part of this land was nominally included in the nature reserve “Troieshchyna Meadows” created by Kyiv City Council in 2020. Accordingly, the existence of this protected area is now in question.

As KV has learned, today, 14 June 2022, a hearing of the Commercial Court of the city of Kyiv is to take place in case No. 910/11761/21.

In this proceeding Kyiv City Council demands that the private notary Nadiya Karavai’s decision to register for LLC “Nova Ukraina” the right of permanent use of two land plots in the Desnianskyi district of Kyiv with a total area of 375,18 ha (cadastral numbers – 8000000000:62:212:0008 and 8000000000:62:211:0127) be declared unlawful and cancelled. The purpose of the plots is for commercial agricultural production.

The city council also demands the termination of this company’s right of permanent use of this land.

The defendants in this case are listed as LLC “Nova Ukraina” and notary Nadiya Karavai.

A third party on the claimant’s side is the charitable organization (CO) "Charitable Fund of the Dnipro District of Kyiv City 'Kyiv Ecological and Cultural Center'".

The representative of the third party in court, well-known city lawyer and human rights defender Oleksandr Dyadyuk, told KV why the notary had no right to register the right of permanent use of the specified land for this company.

“Nova Ukraina had an act granting the right to use land of the Kirov state farm, which was issued in 1981. But in 2004 that right was lost because at that time, at Nova Ukraina’s request, Kyiv City Council had leased that land to them. You cannot simultaneously have a lease right and a right of permanent use. Later they renounced the lease as well. One should not forget that according to the current Land Code of Ukraine, only state and communal entities can obtain the right of permanent use of land plots. Nova Ukraina has no rights to the land. This is a plain scam,” Oleksandr Dyadyuk explained.

According to him, initially the city prosecutor’s office appealed to the court with similar claims regarding this land, and only then did Kyiv City Council “wake up.” Because the subject matter of these two suits was identical, the court closed the proceedings on the law enforcement agencies’ claim. Moreover, according to Oleksandr Dyadyuk, the prosecutor’s suit was drafted more competently and had a better chance of being satisfied by the court.

In the lawyer’s opinion, the not very professional drafting of the Kyiv City Council’s suit and the behavior of its lawyers during court hearings indicate that the Kyiv authorities are, at minimum, not very interested in returning this juicy piece of land to communal ownership, and at maximum—openly playing into “Nova Ukraina’s” hands.

“This is the most ‘expensive’ case in all Kyiv courts. I drew that conclusion based on how much this land is worth. We are talking about 10 billion hryvnias. However, at the last court hearing the Kyiv City Council’s lawyers did not appear, sending a ‘note’ that they had no people who could attend the trial. Is this such a ‘trivial’ and ‘insignificant’ matter? The city’s property is being taken away, but nobody pays attention! Therefore I have certain concerns about this court case. First, by all rankings Ukraine is the most corrupt country in Europe, so any development of the situation in this proceeding can be expected. Second—the Kyiv City Council’s claim is poorly written. And I am sure this was done deliberately. I repeatedly appealed to [Kyiv mayor Vitali] Klitschko and [Kyiv City Council secretary Volodymyr] Bondarenko: I asked them to do something with this claim so that it would not look so weak, and even indicated what evidence could be added. But it was like throwing peas against a wall,” Oleksandr Dyadyuk said.

KV decided to analyze this situation.

Land twists and turns

On 21 October 2004 Kyiv City Council by decision No. 655/2065 leased to LLC “Nova Ukraina” 11 land plots within the Desnianskyi district of Kyiv with a total area of 486,5 ha for 15 years for commercial agricultural production. The land allocation was made from parts of the lands previously assigned to the Kirov state farm (according to the above-mentioned state act on the right to use land dated 1981).

But subsequently LLC “Nova Ukraina’s” plans to develop this land seemingly changed. In 2004–2008 the company gradually renounced these plots, and Kyiv City Council by several decisions transferred them to other legal entities. Most of this land—about 323,2 ha—during that period the city deputies transferred free of charge into the ownership of three housing service cooperatives (HSCs) – “Zabudovnyk,” “Mistobudivnyk,” and “Pryladobudivnyk.”

At the same time, the purpose of some of the plots received by the cooperatives was changed—the city authorities allowed them to be used “for residential development.” However, these HSCs were unable to build on this land. According to Oleksandr Dyadyuk, over the next five years the Kyiv prosecutor’s office, filing suits with the city commercial court, returned these plots to Kyiv’s communal ownership.

An analysis of one such case shows that the judges listened to the prosecutors’ arguments that the city authorities had no right to give the land to the cooperatives free of charge because their members did not prove the necessity of improving their housing conditions at the expense of the specified plots, as required by Ukrainian legislation.

During the next decade the land was not used by anyone. In 2017–2020 there were talks that part of this territory might be used by the city authorities for housing construction for victims of the “Elita-Center” fraud or for the creation of the so-called industrial hub “Kyiv Business Harbor.”

The industrial hub “Kyiv Business Harbor” is quite a story. This project started in 2013, its initiator and partner was the current head of the Ministry for Communities and Territories Development, Oleksii Chernyshov; millions from Kyiv’s budget were spent on this program, and there was a scandal with hints of corruption. In June 2021 the process of allocating four plots totaling 106,68 ha—remaining from over 300 ha planned initially for the “Kyiv Business Harbor”—had not even been completed.

That is, beyond discussions the land issue did not move much. And other claimants appeared on the land—including LLC “Nova Ukraina.”

Thus, on 28 March 2019 the company filed with the Department of Land Resources of the Kyiv City State Administration an application to develop a land management project to establish the boundaries on the ground of a huge land plot in the Desnianskyi district. Nova Ukraina relied on the above-mentioned state act dated 1981.

The next day, 29 March, then-secretary of the VIII convocation of Kyiv City Council Volodymyr Prokopiv (now a Kyiv City Council deputy from European Solidarity and deputy head of the KSCA) instructed by resolution the then-director of the Department of Land Resources of the KSCA, Petro Olenych, to take up the issue. As a result, on 5 April 2019 the Department of Land Resources of the KSCA sent document No. ZHV-0280 to the City Council, granting consent for the development of technical land-management documentation for LLC “Nova Ukraina.”

It is worth recalling that on 28 July 2020 Kyiv City Council, well publicizing itself, by decision No. 92/9171 announced part of the territory of the Desnianskyi district with an estimated area of 381,8 ha as the local landscape reserve “Troieshchyna Meadows.” According to the decision, communal land plots that had not been granted into ownership or use were included in this territory. However, as it turned out later, the reserve also included land that LLC “Nova Ukraina” had set its sights on. According to the mentioned Kyiv City Council decision, the protection of the specified object with the formalization of a protection obligation was entrusted to the CO "Charitable Fund of the Dnipro District of Kyiv City 'Kyiv Ecological and Cultural Center'"—the organization that currently acts as a third party in the said court dispute.

As KV reported, despite the fact that part of the land claimed by LLC “Nova Ukraina” ended up within the reserve, the company did not intend to give up. It developed land-management documentation but did not submit it to Kyiv City Council for consideration and approval, as required by current legislation.

Thus, “Nova Ukraina” does not have a local government decision in hand granting it the right to use this land.

Nevertheless, on 30 September 2020 private notary of the Kyiv city notarial district Nadiya Karavai entered into the State Register of Property Rights to Real Estate the information that LLC "Nova Ukraina" had been granted the right of permanent use of two land plots in the Desnianskyi district of Kyiv with a total area of 375,18 ha (cadastral numbers – 8000000000:62:212:0008 and 8000000000:62:211:0127, purpose – for commercial agricultural production).

On 24 December 2020 the Department of Land Resources of the KSCA filed two complaints about the actions of private notary Nadiya Karavai on the above facts to the Office for Combating Raids of the Ministry of Justice.

On 22 March 2021 a complaints review board refused the Department of Land Resources of the KSCA’s requests, motivating the decision by stating that the Department had not met the statutory deadlines for filing such complaints.

After that, during 2021 the “competition” for the city land was taken up by the Kyiv prosecutor’s office and Kyiv City Council itself.

Developers: Khmelnytskyi, Komarnytskyi and the Brovary owner of construction plants

According to the analytical system Youcontrol, LLC “Nova Ukraina” was founded in December 2003 in the village of Zazymia, Brovary district, Kyiv region. The company’s director is listed as Serhii Shevchenko, the founders as Kyiv resident Anton Maslov and the company “Demetra Seed Investments Limited” (Seychelles), with ultimate beneficiaries being the same Anton Maslov and Brovary resident Olena Dudar.

The latter is a deputy of the Brovary City Council (Brovary territorial community council) from the For the Future party. Her father, Mykhailo Dudar, is CEO and owner of the Brovary Plant-Building Complex (BPBK) and PrJSC “Brovary Plant of Building Structures,” as well as owner of the Brovary Precast Concrete Plant.

BPBK in recent years has been actively involved in Brovary’s development. This company has 9 residential complexes commissioned in that city. Currently BPBK is also implementing another rather large project in Brovary—the residential neighborhood “Savanna City” on Chubynskoho Street in Brovary, which will consist of 15 buildings.

In turn, the above-mentioned Anton Maslov in 2017–2018 was listed as a founder of at least three LLCs (“Agrokombinat Khotivskyi,” “Buzivske” and “Tarasivka”). Youcontrol attributes these companies to the UFuture group, whose main assets include the well-known developer UDP, the international airport Kyiv named after I. Sikorsky (Zhuliany), national outdoor advertising operator RTM-Ukraine, and others.

The key person and founder of the UFuture group is Vasyl Khmelnytskyi—a former People’s Deputy of Ukraine of the IV–VII convocations, a well-known entrepreneur who during the mayoralties of Oleksandr Omelchenko and Leonid Chernovetskyi had direct connections to Kyiv monopolies—Kyivgaz, Kyivkhlib, and the Khreschatyk bank.

It is worth noting that LLC “Agrokombinat Khotivskyi” figured in a scandal similar to the “Troieshchyna Meadows” case—this company under dubious circumstances claimed, or still claims, rights to 1 thousand hectares of capital land in the area of Feofaniya Park and the Pirohovo locality.

We also note that LLC “Nova Ukraina” appeared in the so-called “Komarnytskyi files”—documents that law enforcement officers found on businessman Denys Komarnytskyi’s computer (in the collage on the left), who earlier the public and politicians repeatedly called a ‘watcher’ over Kyiv.

The ‘files’ reported that the aforementioned Anton Maslov in 2018 intended to sell his stake in the company to Candidate of Economic Sciences and city entrepreneur Suren Mikaelian.

Recall that the Department of Land Resources of the KSCA has been headed by Valentyna Pelykh since 29 June 2021 (she had acted as head of this structure since 2 April 2021). From 27 July 2018 to 1 April 2021 this department was headed by the aforementioned Petro Olenych, who since 2 April 2021 has held the post of deputy head of the KSCA for the exercise of self-governing powers and oversees land and urban planning issues in Kyiv.

It should be noted that during martial law all full powers in Kyiv belong to the Kyiv City Military Administration (KCMA), which since early March 2022 has been headed by General Mykola Zhirnov. The head of the KCMA has two deputies, one of whom is the head of the KSCA, Kyiv mayor Vitali Klitschko.

Photo: KV collage

KyivVlada

Ivan Kulyk