Progress comes to developers

The construction industry in Moscow started changing rapidly with Sergey Sobyanin’s team coming to the Mayor’s Office. First of all, the authorities banned infill residential construction. Developers had to find the common ground with officials: as a result, projects including all necessary social infrastructure started to emerge in the market. This was a turning point for creating quality urban environment. Meanwhile, before 2013 complications with getting approvals for all permits had been one of developers’ problems. Three years ago the city authorities started implementing electronic documentation flow when approving projects which sped up the process considerably. As of now submission of documents to Moskomarchitectura (Moscow Architecture and City Planning Committee) and Mosgosstrynadzor (Moscow State Construction Supervision Committee) takes minimum time as it is done online. This does not only simplify the document submission procedure but also allows you to track their progress online and strictly defines the timing for processing documents at every stage.

If to speak about the time for processing permits, it has contracted to 10 days, and a report on compliance of the constructed project with design documents is now issued in 5 days. At the same time, there are issues that still have to be addressed. For example, technical specifications and signing agreements for connection to utilities are the biggest problem for all developers. Therefore it is necessary to maximally simplify interaction with resource providers. The authorities are now actively tackling this issue.

[citata id=432]For instance, according to Vice Mayor and Head of the city’s Construction Complex Marat Khusnullin, the procedure for construction of small-diameter utility networks (such as gas pipelines, water pipelines and electricity supply networks) in the capital will soon be simplified. One more tough issue is developing sites in industrial zones. In order to get to the site and start construction, it is necessary to go to a lot of authorities, sometimes even remediate the land and adapt it to residential construction, all that before obtaining an urban development plan. In general, any construction is impossible without an urban development plan: having received this document, developers undergo several procedures at the same time.

For example, it is necessary to obtain technical specifications from Mosvodokanal (Moscow Water and Sewage Company), a power provider, JCS MOEK (heating), Mosgaz (gas) and Mosvodostok (rain water sewage). So a developer has to attend at least five organizations. Engineering surveys are carried out to obtain geological, ecological and topographic materials. At the same time the design process starts, design documentation and engineering survey results are examined, here is ongoing work with the Moscow Architecture and City Planning Committee that issues a certificate of approval for architectural and urban planning design. Only having obtained a conclusion of the expert examination and a certificate of approval for architectural and urban planning design, the developer can get a construction permit in the Moscow State Construction Supervision Committee.  With the start of construction the State Construction Supervision Committee issues a schedule to the developer that is used for relevant inspections.

Moreover, during construction the Union of Administrative and Technical Inspections (UATI) checks if garbage is removed from the site in time and roads around the site are clean. Works on connection of facilities under construction to utilities are carried out in parallel with the construction process. When construction is finished there is an inspection by the Moscow State Construction Supervision Committee that issues a report on compliance of the constructed project with design documents; then you get an occupancy permit.  And the final step is registering the property title in Rosreestr. On average, getting the project to the construction stage can take up to two years, and if this time is cut to one year it will be of considerable help to developers in the capital.

Daromir Obuhanich

First Deputy Director General, GC MIC

Vedomosti