Fair price for eviction from Soviet Street

"The problem of the cost of housing for former Soviet Street (now Avenue Narimanov) is that the ground beneath them is not privatized by their owners. If the land was private, the residents of demolished buildings could demand higher and fair compensation for the eviction," Turan was told by the director of the appraisal company MBA Ltd Nusrat Ibrahimov.

According to him, the privatization of land in the area was prevented only by one thing: almost all owners of houses have no legal document to allocate the land. For the same reason the interest of construction companies to N. Narimanov Avenue and nearby streets known as collectively as Soviet was not high. For the same reason there is no expert assessment on the market value of land in the area. In fact, over the last 2-3 years there were no offers for the sale of land in Soviet Street, said the director of the appraisal company.

Avenue Narimanov is located within the so-called "first zone", where 1 acre of land is estimated by MBA Ltd as $ 263,400 to $ 264,100.

Ibrahimov said compensation to owners of apartments of 100 square meters and above can be considered fair. "As a result of monitoring the secondary market old apartments in the area were offered from 600 to 800 manat per m2. The nearby buildings before the demolition were 1,200 AZN per m2. With the demolition of Soviet, the home prices approached 1,500 AZN per m2," he said.

The Government argues that according to the draft of the new Master Plan of Baku in place of demolished buildings on the "Soviet" will be a park and extended road infrastructure. Neither of the construction of residential buildings can be out of the question, said in a live broadcast on one of the local TV channels Deputy Prime Minister Abid Sharifov. He also stressed that the completion of the inventory of the said territory, which can last until May, the government may consider compensation for housing low area at a higher price. "They talk about the need to pay owners of apartments with a small area in compensation 2 500 - 3 000 manats per 1 m2 instead of the assigned AZN 1,500. However, this principle does not allow calculation of this category of citizens to buy property," said Sharifov. According to him, so far inventoried about 3 000 houses, four of which have an area of 25 m2.

Recently, the chairman of the State Committee for Urban Planning and Architecture Abbas Alasgarov said that according to the preliminary draft of a detailed plan of the old residential areas as Soviet, Papanin and Khutor (Farm) in Baku, in the place liberated from residential buildings will be carried out landscaping. Not excluded is the construction of public buildings. However, he clarified that forced evictions will not happen and if people do not agree on the eviction, a new detailed plan can be made. - 08B -