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THE IMPLEMENTATION OF RESETTLEMENT PROGRAMS FROM EMERGENCY HOUSING STOCK IN THE CENTERS OF RUSSIAN CITIES – THE PROBLEM OF PRESERVING CITY-FORMING OBJECTS AND OBJECTS OF CULTURAL HERITAGE
The privatization process has created a huge number of homeowners in Russia due to the transition to a market economy. Some experts in Russia agree that a huge number of homeowners distinguishes Russia from the Western experience and saves Russian cities from the process of gentrification. However, there is a State Program of Resettlement of the Emergency Housing Stock. The goal of the program is to reduce the number of emergency houses. If the house is declared an emergency, the government can withdraw it for public needs. According to this process, the government must pay householders for their homes and offer new ones within the city boarders. As a rule, a huge number of emergency houses are located in the city center, which is also a place of concentration of cultural heritage sites. After relocation, the objects must be reconstructed or demolished. In addition, there are a lot of cases of civil protests against demolitions of valuable historical buildings for the realization of that program. That is why our research focused on the implementation of this program to objects of historical heritage. On the one hand householders have security obligations of objects of heritage, on the other hand the government can confiscate them if the objects are threatened with loss. From this side the implementation program is an instrument of confiscation of heritage objects for saving them. But in real practice we found that the government does nothing after resettlement. And that inaction leads to the slow destruction of objects. In our research based on experience of four Russian cities we investigate how resettlement programs are implemented jointly with heritage programs. In spite of the importance of social aspects, we do not consider them in our research. However, we show the problem, that for sustainable development of city centers the government has to find approaches for better management of heritage objects, search for investments and work with householders instead of resettle them.
