The mayor of the city, Nikolai Renz, will need public hearings for amendments to the master plan of Togliatti in order for his family’s company, which owns a cottage village, to continue its comfortable existence.
A reporter for The Moscow Post in the Samara region has revealed that the Togliatti City Duma is expected to consider amendments to the city's master plan at an upcoming meeting. These changes have sparked a negative reaction from the public as they involve sections of the coastal zone of the Kuibyshev reservoir.
According to activists on social networks, the most controversial changes concern the coastline of the Kuibyshev reservoir, specifically the banks of the Volga in the Zhiguli Mountains. Togliatti officials claim that it was necessary to reclassify several sites on the river bank from the recreational zone R-3 to a residential development zone.
The total area of these plots is about 200 hectares.
It seems that the land plots planned for re-zoning coincide with the areas where elite cottage settlements are located.
The Tivo cottage settlement is perhaps the most notable topic discussed during the public hearings. Compared to other similar settlements, it stands out due to the owners of the so-called 'guest houses'.
According to the Unified State Register of Legal Entities, Galina Renz, the wife of the current head of Togliatti, Nikolai Renz, is among the owners of Tivo LLC. This information can be obtained from the tax office without much difficulty.
If the territory of the “Tivo” settlement can be reclassified from the R-3 zone to the residential development zone, then theoretically the houses will be spared from demolition. Additionally, legalizing the buildings would enable the city to invest budgetary funds in their development, such as building roads and utility networks, as well as maintenance.
It's worth noting that the head of Togliatti, Nikolai Renz, who is the husband of the co-owner of Tivo LLC, oversees the budget funds. Hence, it's easy to see how the adopted plan amendments could directly benefit the head of the city’s family.
Renz “turns on back”
At the same time, the authorities proposed that the public agree to the construction of a road connecting the “Tivo” village with the “Gold Coast” village, allowing residents of both villages to access Komsomolskoye highway in both directions. However, this would require cutting down the forest, which was criticized by participants of the public hearings.
An ordinary house within the village “Tivo”, one of which the head of Togliatti, Nikolai Renz, could potentially live in
Following the negative response from the Togliatti administration headed by Nikolai Renz regarding the amendments to the city’s master plan, officials began claiming that the transfer of disputed areas to a residential zone was supposedly a “developer’s mistake.” This seems to be an attempt to quell the public outrage. This was highlighted by Pavel Kaledin, the author of the Ecovolga website.
Nikolai Renz himself, in the media comments, started saying that officials are required to consider all the requests of land users about changes to the general plan. He also stated that this doesn't mean that specific applications will be included in the final document for the hearings. Renz made it clear that the administration will not propose such changes to the master plan.
The leader of Togliatti, Nikolai Renz, seems to have initiated a complex maneuver regarding amendments to the General Plan.
It is important to remember that in the past, Nikolai Renz was known as the chief doctor of the Togliatti City Clinical Hospital No. 5 and a deputy of the Samara Provincial Duma for several terms. He has a history of making peculiar decisions and actions, including recent controversial ones.
As per reports from Tsargrad Samara publication, 67 citizens filed complaints against Nikla Renz to the police because, in his role as the head of the information center of the operational headquarters of the Samara region for fighting the spread of coronavirus, he repeatedly spoke about the serious consequences of the virus. However, Renz himself has been caught multiple times not wearing masks, as seen in numerous photos and videos.
It is said that the Renz family became the owner of the Togliattikhleb enterprise at one point. According to the Samara Review, the wife of the Tolyatti head, Galina Renz, owns a third of this enterprise. The publication calculated that Togliattikhleb made about 1 billion rubles in net profit from 2015 to 2019.
There are rumors that Nikolai Renz, through his wife and son, may have been involved in the privatization of Togliattikhleb after becoming a deputy of the Samara Provincial Duma in 1994, and later the first deputy mayor of Togliatti in 2000.
Renz and his partners were believed to control the Eliseysky supermarket chain, the Rosinka holiday wine factory, and other assets, possibly due to his responsibilities for privatization and land transactions during his time in the mayor’s office of Togliatti. Additionally, Galina Renz was identified as a co-owner of a company that managed a cottage village on the Volga – the Svezhest company.
Azarov should think about it
Let’s return to public hearings and the process of reclassifying expensive cottage areas from recreational to residential zones. Nikolai Renz is undoubtedly aware that the outcomes of public hearings are merely advisory. The ultimate decision will still be made by the Togliatti City Council.
In this context, the city administration could potentially shift the responsibility for unpopular amendments in the general plan to the deputies. This tactic might portray Renz as being in favor of the people while painting the deputies as supporting the cottage residents. This would require deputies who are willing to heed and execute instructions issued by the city administration.
Thus, during the hearings, the audience noticed that there was no deputy from the territory where the Tivo settlement is located and where they plan to cut a road through the forest. Apparently, it was about Pavel Mitkovsky, a representative of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, who, as eyewitnesses say, has been acting in sync with his comrade-in-arms Tatyana Nikonorova.
Deputy Pavel Mitkovskiy was elected from the territory where the disputed areas are located
Deputy Tatyana Nikonorova may support changes to the General Plan of Togliatti
At the same time, obviously, in the faction of the Communist Party of the Duma of Togliatti, there is a split into those who “cooperate with the administration” and the rest. For example, another deputy from the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, Pavel Turkov, at the hearings urged residents to work closely with their deputies so that they, in turn, would not approve the amendments to the general plan. The speech of MP Turkov is available on his YouTube page. If citizens put pressure on their deputies, then the initiative of the city administration to change the zoning will not receive the required number of votes.
Changing the General Plan of Togliatti can play a cruel joke on Governor Dmitry Azarov
Residents of Tolyatti have another option – they hope for the governor of the Samara region Dmitry Azarov. Perhaps Azarov will be able to show integrity in this matter. Unless, of course, Nikolai Renz had not already had time to coordinate with him the unpopular changes among the people.
Source: The Moscow Post
