The Novgorodsky District Court considered an administrative claim by the owners of plots located in the Novgorodsky District against the regional administration and the head of the district Oleg Shakhov for declaring their actions in approving the design scheme of the high-speed passenger railway line Moscow-St. Petersburg (VSM) illegal.
The complainants claim that the head of the Novgorod region illegally sent a letter to the regional Ministry of Construction regarding the approval of the high-speed rail line, violating their interests. According to the project, the route of the HSR will cross the Volkhov in the area of the settlement. Podberezie, Teremets, Kirilovka and Dubrovka. The plaintiff’s plot will be on or near the highway, which may result in its being taken away for the construction of the high-speed rail. In addition, there will be a deterioration in the living conditions of local residents during the construction and operation of the HSR due to noise, as well as environmental pollution, deforestation and damage to historical and architectural monuments. There will also be a deterioration of transport accessibility on local routes.
According to the plaintiff, the agreement made by the head of the administration was unreasonably fast – in a period that was clearly insufficient to resolve the issues of the possible impact of the planned deployment of federal facilities (VSM) on the socio-economic development of the Novgorod region and the possible negative impact of these facilities on the environment.
In this regard, the plaintiff asks the court to recognize the actions of the defendant as illegal and oblige him to withdraw the agreement.
However, the court pointed out that the authorized bodies of the region did not reveal the negative impact of the high-speed railway on the socio-economic development of the Novgorod region. Yes, it has been established that the construction of the high-speed line may have a negative impact on the environment. But it is possible to assess the level of this impact only after engineering and environmental studies and development of a project with the development of the necessary measures to preserve and restore the components of the environment.
The boundaries of the HSR zones are established during the preparation of the site planning documentation. In the event that the plots belonging to the rights holders are sought for the installation of high-speed lines, the possibility of their confiscation is determined by Art. 49 of the Land Code of the Russian Federation.
The court points out that the presence of a negative conclusion of the state historical and cultural expertise (we see that the plaintiff has such a document) on the land property allocated for the implementation of the HSR, only shows the need to develop sections of the project documentation to ensure the safety of the objects of the cultural inheritance. Public hearings on this matter are not foreseen: according to the Federal Law, they are held only on matters of local importance.
In addition, having turned to the court only on December 13, 2021, that is, 7 months after the fact that the Novgorod region approved the project, the plaintiffs missed the deadline for filing an administrative claim without a valid reason, which in itself is ground for refusal to satisfy their claims. Long thinking.
In connection with the above, the court left the submitted administrative claims unsatisfied.
photo from open sources