In Astana, residents of a dilapidated barrack are facing obstacles in relocating under the city's renovation program for old housing. The reason is a disagreement over square meters, reports infohub.kz.
According to the TV channel, in 2021, the barrack at 2A Herzen Street was declared unfit for habitation. Under the renovation program, the turn for demolition and resident relocation came this year. However, instead of the long-awaited keys, two families received a refusal from the commission. It is reported that residents had built additional rooms to their apartments and claim they properly registered the expansion of their living space. But during relocation, the city administration refused to provide new apartments based on the new square meters. Instead, they offer housing only based on the original area, which is five times smaller.
For example, one owner is asking for housing based on 300 square meters, but officials only consider the original 54 square meters. The man claims that for 13 years he raised children, built additions, and honestly processed all documents through the Public Service Center.
"We disagree, we are writing complaints everywhere. Because we have 300 sq. m according to Form 2. But they say only 54, according to the old documents, when we bought the house, we had 54 square meters. And what we legalized, all the additions, they don't consider at all. Although we have all the documents, everything is legal," said Astana resident Mereke Nazyrov.
Residents insist that there are no illegal actions, as there were no encumbrances on the housing in the database. Meanwhile, the city's housing department explains that the additions were only registered this year, just before the relocation. But since the house was officially declared dilapidated five years ago, the law prohibits any reconstruction or expansion.
"In this situation, many cases have emerged where residents of dilapidated houses make illegal or unauthorized additions and legalize them. Under this program, legalization of unauthorized additions in dilapidated houses is not allowed by law," explained Raikhan Dzholdinova, chief specialist of the Astana Housing and Housing Inspection Department.
Now, city authorities and residents are preparing for court proceedings to settle the dispute over whether the additions in the dilapidated barrack are legal.