Dacha question: What will happen in case of flooding?

Since last year, large-scale work has been carried out in the city of Petropavl, as well as in the districts of the North Kazakhstan region, to prevent spring flooding. In the regional center, existing dams and earthen ramparts have been strengthened and reconstructed, their height has been brought to the calculated values, taking into account the flood of 2024. As a result of these works, the threat of flooding of the Podgora and Kozhevennyi microdistricts has been eliminated.

Nevertheless, the water level in the Sergeyevskoye reservoir continues to rise. The village of Zarechnyi and dacha plots located in the river floodplain are at risk. Historically, during the flood, a planned overflow of water occurs near the hydroelectric power station and partially floods the territory of the village. Taking into account these circumstances, the city akimat decided to resettle residents of individual housing construction (IHC) in the village of Zarechnyi and move social facilities.

Akim of Petropavl Serik Mukhamediyev met with the chairmen of dacha communities to once again discuss the issues that concern them and conduct explanatory work.

"There are 107 dacha communities in the city, 28 thousand dacha houses, 7.5 thousand of which are located in the floodplain of the Yesil River. In the event of a rapid flood, these buildings will be the first to be flooded. These plots in the floodplain of the Yesil River were provided to you in Soviet times for gardening activities, and not for people to live here year-round. According to the law, dacha houses were considered to be buildings with a total area of ​​no more than 25 square meters. Also, when building a dacha house, it is necessary to coordinate the sketch with the akimat, otherwise it will be illegal. I repeat, dacha houses are designed only for temporary or seasonal residence, since they are "a structure intended for growing agricultural crops." This is not permanent housing and compensation for it is not provided for by law. Knowing that these areas are at risk of flooding and that only summer cottages should be here, some residents built cottages of 100 square meters or more here without the necessary permits,” Serik Mukhamediyev, Akim of Petropavl, said.

Last year, the Government adopted a one-time decision to provide social assistance, including to summer residents. About 5 thousand summer residents received compensation in the amount of 369,200 tenge (100 MCI). With the support of charitable foundations, 92 citizens whose summer cottages were recognized as their only housing were paid compensation for repair work.

As the city Akim explained at a regular meeting, the legislation does not include the concept of “only housing” or “assistance to summer residents in case of flooding,” and therefore this year there will be no monetary or other compensation in the event of flooding of summer cottages.

“The owners of summer cottages themselves will bear full responsibility for the safety of their summer cottage property. For its part, the city administration will provide a place in the evacuation point, as well as a temporary warehouse for storing property and will ensure its transportation,” assured the city akim Serik Mukhamediyev.

“Last year, about 40 houses in the Iskra dacha association were recognized as the only housing. In this regard, financial assistance was provided. Despite this, the owners insist on recognizing their buildings as residential buildings and providing them with new housing. According to the current legislation, this is impossible,” explained the city akim.

Today, there are more than 15 thousand residents in Petropavl who are on the waiting list for housing. Of these, 8 thousand are representatives of socially vulnerable groups of the population. Many have been on the waiting list for more than 10-15 years. Summer residents cannot receive housing before those on the waiting list, so they were advised to join the queue in accordance with the current legislation and then receive housing in the order of the queue or take advantage of existing preferential programs (Otbasy Bank JSC). The city akim also reported that there will be no construction of individual housing construction in the microdistricts located in the river floodplain, namely Podgora, Kozhevennyi and Zarechnyi in the future. These areas will be provided only for the development of parks, squares and easily erected sports facilities. In addition, local executive bodies submitted a proposal to the Majilis of the Parliament of the Republic of Kazakhstan for consideration to limit the sanitary zone for capital construction at a distance of 1000 meters.