Supreme Court approves controversial delisting of St. Petersburg architectural monuments

2012-01-19



The Russian Supreme Court ruled that the St. Petersburg authorities were acting in accordance with the law when they de-listed 38 architectural monuments from the protection list in 2004. The court cancelled the decision to the contrary of the St. Petersburg court which found that the city authorities were not authorised to de-list monuments without a special examination. The city authorities insist that in 2004 the examination requirement did not yet exist. At the same time, groups defending the monuments claim that the final decision in the case helps the city's mayor Georgy Poltavchenko to cover the mistakes of his predecessor – Valentina Matvienko, as well as favouring the largest developers in the city, such as VTB Development, which have or had their projects in the historic centre of the city.

As a result of the city's initial administrative decisions of 2004, the majority of monuments from the aforementioned list have been already demolished and replaced with upmarket properties.

If the St. Petersburg court decision had come into force (which considered the city's de-listing decision to be illegal), some later de-listings could have been cancelled, thereby threatening more recent development projects where the monuments have not yet been demolished. One of the examples being the Naberezhnaya Evropy mixed-use project developed by VTB Development on the site of the former state-owned Wine Warehouse. It is worth noting that VTB Development is headed by Sergey Matvienko – the son of the former city governor Valentina Matvienko.