More recent news about the Gazprom project

Posted on the ECOM website on 12 August 2009
'The metrical desires of Okhta-Center: why 403, and not 48?'

Today at 4pm at a session of the St. Petersburg Commission on Land Use and Construction, the OAO “Public-business center Okhta” will present justifications for the variance from the maximum parameters permitted for construction in the Krasnogvardeiskii District. The owner claims that the unfavorable characteristics of the “Okhta-Center” construction site “force” him to exceed the height designated in the Rules on Land Use and Construction—that is, 48 meters—by 355 meters.

What are these unfavorable characteristics of the site which make it essential for the designers of the “Okhta-Center” to exceed the height regulation by 355 meters? (Just a month ago that figure was 348 meters.) Today the plantiffs – the company “Public-business center Okhta” and the Committee for the Management of City Property – will propose to the Commission on LUC the following “unfavorable” features:

--Limitations placed on the site by surrounding water, the impossibility of construction in protected riparian zones, the impossibility of construction at the perimeter;
--The trapezoidal configuration of the site – an unfavorable shape for effective planning solutions;
--The impossibility of observing comprehensive security requirements while still observing planning regulations;
--The necessity of restoring the historical site in the building’s foundation (a five-pointed star at the base of the building), which limits the possible area of construction.

Alexander Karpov, director of the ECOM Research Center, comments that “Neither the confinement of the site by water, nor the shape of the site, nor the other stated features prevent the construction of a building with a height of 48 meters. We should note that in Petersburg hundreds of sites have a trapezoidal form, and hundreds, if not thousands, are located on the shores of water. If we accept these arguments as a sufficient claim for a height variance, then the height regulation can be confidently rejected, and all the embankments will be built up with tall buildings, visually turning the Neva into a narrow canal.”

Provided on Zaks.ru on 9 July 2009
'From the resolution of the 33rd Session of the World Heritage Committee of UNESCO' (which met in Seville on 30 June)
[St. Petersburg’s entire central historical area is on the list of World Heritage Sites.]

[Zaks.ru obtained the text of the document from St. Petersburg Legislative Deputy Aleksei Kovalev.]

Section d) Gazprom – Okhta-Center
The proposed tower is an example of complexities produced by the existing systems of legislation, planning, and management. In 2006, Gazprom organized an international competition for a project on the banks of the Neva in the neighborhood of the mouth of the Okhta River. The competition parameters were not resolved with the preservation agencies. The project presents a tower with a height of 300 meters, even as the current [legal] system limits the height to 100 meters. The winner of the competition, RMJM (UK) proposes to build a tower with a height of 396 meters.

Requests made to the Participant Country to present more detailed information about the project were not honored. It is asserted that the tower fulfills a social need. At the present time, archaeological excavation is taking place at the site, where remains have been found of a Swedish fortress dating from the 14-16th centuries. The sponsors see the project, which has tried to make allowances for these remains, however physically they do not stay in the same place. The proposal to construct a tower at Okhta has produced a strong reaction among non-governmental organizations.

The [World Heritage] Mission remains of the opinion that if the current siting and height are retained, the tower presents a threat to the outstanding universal value of the [Heritage Site]:

--The tower contradicts the characteristics of the [Site] as a horizontal, shoreline, and urban landscape;
--The tower threatens the authenticity and wholeness of the [Site], creating dissonance with the “skyline” of the historical panorama of the Neva River;
--The tower places certain crucial visual axes under threat;
--The proposed height of the tower violates the existing regimes of the territory and could set a dangerous precedent.

In conjunction with a request made by the 32nd Session of the Committee, meetings took place at the highest levels between the chairman of the Committee, the director of the Center and the St. Petersburg authorities, including the city governor.