MPs offer reduction of land area alienated for Sochi Olympic sites

The total area of the land plots in Sochi bought out for construction of 2014 Olympic objects can be reduced. A group of Deputies from "Edinaya Rossiya" (United Russia) faction has brought in a bill to the State Duma, under which the state can take, till January 1, 2014, the land plots owned by Sochi citizens into restricted use for construction of Olympic objects.

The "Kommersant" newspaper writes that the "Edinaya Rossiya" MPs offer amendments to the legislation, which allow not to alienate land plots for building Sochi Olympic objects, but to borrow them for restricted use (servitude).

"Not all the residents of houses in Sochi, located on alienated sites, agree to leave their houses in particular because these land plots will be involved in state project only partially, or only for the construction period," Deputy Natalia Ermakova, one of the authors of the bill brought into the State Duma, has explained. She believes that "introduction of servitude would allow essentially softening the social tension and, moreover, saving budget funds, now used for real estate repayment or resettlement."

Ms Ermakova has noted that the citizens whose land plots will be used by the state, for example, for electric power lines, communications, pipelines, water pipes, municipal networks and ropeways, can preserve their land titles. Also, at construction of Olympic objects, this or that land plot can be required only as a road for transportation of building materials or construction of certain temporary or auxiliary structures.