Press Release, 23.08.2018

The Krasnoyarsk branch of the Yabloko party opposed the plans of the local administration to cut the green zones in the city of Krasnoyarsk for the sake of opening of vehicles service facilities there.

On 22-23 August, the city administration is holding public hearings aiming to get a formal residents’ consent so that to give permissions to entrepreneurs from different districts of Krasnoyarsk for the use of land plots located in the green zone for the launch of automobile transport facilities there.

The Krasnoyarsk regional branch of the Yabloko party expressed its categorical disagreement in each of the cases by sending appeals to the relevant commissions for organisation of public hearings and the administration of the city of Krasnoyarsk.

“Giving such permissions will lead to a potential reduction of the green area in our city,” lawyer Maxim Bombakov, who tops the list of Yabloko candidates for deputies to the Krasnoyarsk City Council, said. “In addition, emergence of new vehicles servicing facilities instead of green areas will in fact stimulate further increase of the number of cars in Krasnoyarsk. Probably, the city officials have forgotten that the motor vehicles emissions, along with industrial pollution, are key factors behind deterioration of the quality of atmospheric air and degradation of the urban environment in Krasnoyarsk. ”

The problem of the quantity and quality of urban greenery is now one of the most urgent environmental problems in Krasnoyarsk. Earlier this year, the city’s head promised to plant 12,000 trees in various districts of Krasnoyarsk, but environmentalists consider this number a “rather weak compensation” for the demolition of the green areas in the industrial city during preparation for the Winter Student Games that will be held in the city in 2019.