Land “in law”

THE LAST GRANDFATHER

The residents of Hlobyne raion in Poltava oblast now have a real possibility to obtain additional funds for developing the social sphere and significantly improving their welfare. These long-expected wishes will be fulfilled with the help of land that used to belong to the industrial base of the former Kremenchuk Aviation School, which has an area of more than 12 hectares. It is situated on the territory of the Hradyzk village council at the intersection of the Boryspil-Dnipropetrovsk-Zaporizhia and Pohreby-Hradyzk highways.

Also situated here are installations adaptable for further use in the form of industrial establishments, social infrastructure, trade, cattle-raising complexes, and agricultural processing. Furthermore, people can realistically count on foreign investments. The attractiveness of many similar properties is increasing thanks to recent legislative initiatives. Right now significant projects concerning land legislation are awaiting their adoption by the Verkhovna Rada.

Two weeks ago, the Parliamentary Committee on Questions of Agrarian Policy and Land Relations recommended that Ukraine’s parliament use as a base the draft of Ukraine’s law “On Introducing Changes to the Land Code of Ukraine (Concerning Lands of Non-Agricultural Designation) that was submitted by parliamentarian Vasyl Onopenko.

The draft of the law suggests introducing changes to Article 82 of the Land Code of Ukraine, which will make it possible to increase the number of people who can acquire property rights for areas of land of non-agricultural designation. This will include enterprises with foreign investments and subsidiary enterprises established by them on Ukraine’s territory, as well as affiliates.

Articles 82 and 129 of the Land Code do not bar Ukrainian legal entities from acquiring property rights for areas of land of non-agricultural designation to set up entrepreneurial activity. Foreigners had this right only under the condition that they founded a permanent headquarters in Ukraine or established a general enterprise. Now the situation is changing: foreigners may also become owners of land of non-agricultural designation. Thus, even the residents of small areas like Hlobyne raion, not just Ukraine’s capital, can count on the arrival of foreign investors, who will be attracted by the real possibility of becoming owners of land and not just the installations located on it.

This plenary week in the Verkhovna Rada will pass partially under the slogan of “Land”. The week before last, members of committees worked simultaneously on several draft laws to improve land relations, and they proposed submitting them for voting. Besides the above-mentioned project, the Parliamentary Committee on Questions of Agrarian Policy and Land Relations recommended that the Verkhovna Rada take as a base the draft of Ukraine’s law “On Introducing Changes to Certain Legislative Acts of Ukraine (Concerning Land of Non-Agricultural Designation), which was submitted by MP Yulia Tymoshenko.

The aim of this draft law is to introduce changes to Articles 84 and 146 of the Land Code of Ukraine, which will protect the state’s interests during the exploitation of land where deposits of nationally-important mineral resources have been discovered, and the legislative denotation of the status of land used by bodies and institutions that implement punishment, investigative prisons, educational establishments, enterprises affiliated with institutions of incarceration, and other enterprises, institutions, and organizations of the criminal-executive system.

THE CHURCH WAS LEFT TO GOD

Meanwhile, draft laws submitted by MPs Volodymyr Stretovych and Oleksandr Turchynov on granting religious organizations the right to the permanent exploitation of lands owned by the state and municipalities have not found any support among Ukraine’s parliamentarians. At the moment the legislation grants such a right only to state- and municipal-owned enterprises, institutions, and organizations, as well as to civic organizations for the handicapped. Religious organizations have to buy land where they are located or lease them.

The need to resolve the question of permanent land use by churches and religious organizations was expressed by President Yushchenko at a meeting with the members of the All-Ukrainian Council of Churches and Religious Organizations Council on June 14, 2005.

In the last few years the Verkhovna Rada has examined similar law draft laws, and every time this topic has sparked heated discussions. This time Mykola Sadovy, a member of the Socialist Party of Ukraine, was too categorical in claiming that faith is the state of a soul, and religious structures exploit this state in their own interests.

“Parliamentarians should not lobby one religious confession or another in order not to inflame hostility,” urged Sadovy, who considers Turchynov’s draft precisely in those terms.

Yurii Boldyriev, a member of the Party of Regions, said that the Parliamentary Committee on Culture also does not support these draft laws, the reason being that after the collapse of the USSR, Ukraine opened its doors to non-traditional confessions registered abroad, some of which often consist of only two or three individuals. Boldyriev calls the draft law submitted by Turchynov “a law on a far from traditional confession.”

In response, Turchynov accused the representatives of the Party of Regions of a “non-traditional religious orientation.” After this heated discussion only 125 deputies voted for the draft laws, and 120 MPs remained with God but without land. The law was sent for further elaboration.

PRIVATIZATION WILL CHEAPEN

Is the same fate awaiting another draft law, this one concerning the order of cost-free privatization of land for citizens? True, the Verkhovna Rada’s special Control Commission on Privatization Questions examined suggestions to introduce amendments and additions to the Land Code of Ukraine and approved them. I asked Mykola Yevdokymov, the head of the Directorate for the Normative and Informational-Analytical Safeguarding of Land Reform of the State Land Committee, to comment on this draft law.

“The need to approve this law is explained by the fact that today citizens have to pay between 400 and 1,000 hryvnias to register their privatization documents packet, depending on the location of the land. This sum consists of payments for processing the paperwork connected to the registration of a project for land allotment, and a payment for coordinating with land resource organs, environmental protection agencies, and sanitary-epidemic, architectural, and cultural heritage protection agencies. Suggested changes to Clauses 8 and 9 of Article 118 will enable the land user to reduce the cost of the packet of privatization documents by approximately one-quarter and to save time on legalizing necessary documents.

“Today, an individual spends between one and four months on coordinating the land area allotment project. Add to this period one month for a decision to be adopted on the privatization of land plots, one month for examining the application of the allotment and a decision to be passed on transferring ownership of the land. This means that the general deadline for registering a packet of privatization documents for an average citizen may take from one to two years. Therefore, this draft law suggests minimizing the expenses for registering a packet of privatization documents for a plot of land and shortening the deadline for coordinating all these documents.”