Site Development of Yerevan Downtown Raised New Concerns among Residents at 18 Amiryan, 18a Amiryan and 12 Mashtots Avenue

The site development of Yerevan Downtown has raised new concerns among residents. EcoLur has received an alarm signal from the resident of the buildings at 18 Amiryan, 18a Amiryan and 15 Mashtots Avenue in regard with the site development of their yards.

“The whole territory in the yard is dug out, and recently they have installed huge bases for a multi-storey building. This territory already has a whole series of newly constructed multi-storey buildings, and a small territory was left, which deputies in the period of elections promised to make a part, but after a while it became a spot for the construction of a building. We ask for your assistance to stop such a project, which will affect on the residents negatively both in the terms of environment and safety,” the residents wrote.

On the spot EcoLur found out that during 7 years about 20 private houses were purchases from the residents, while the territory was privatized. We couldn’t meet to meet with the person in charge of the construction works or to find out who the owner is and what is constructed. The people present avoided answering any question and just repeated, “Apply to Municipality.” One of the site developers (he didn’t tell us his name) said everything was legal and the Municipality has granted its permit for site development. The person standing next to the site developer said that territory was privately owned and the owner can construct whatever s/he wanted. In reply to EcoLur’s question whether there would be a multi-storey building, he said something like that.

It’s over a year since the residents have been complaining against the site development of their yard. “Last autumn we wrote an application and filed it to the quarter municipality, but nobody paid attention to us. We don’t even know what is constructed here. We all oppose to it…” one of the residents said. “We should have some view. How it can be that whoever constructs here whatever he wants. We are naturally against it.”

We tried to get information on this problem from Yerevan Municipality. Information and Public Relations Department head Arthur Gevorgyan said that he is not aware of the problem and can’t provide any detailed information at that moment.