Development of transport infrastructure, access to better medical and educational services - an expert on the benefits of including villages in urban communities

The inclusion of villages in urban communities provides residents of these settlements with advantages in access to various services. But much depends on how well the authorities of the cities that have become community centers fulfill their obligations. This opinion was voiced by Ihor Koliushko, Chairman of the Center of Policy and Legal Reform, in a commentary to UNN.

According to the expert, the methodology of territorial communities' amalgamation stipulated that the first step was to resolve the issue of the boundaries of cities and towns. That is, to identify small settlements that clearly fall within the area of attraction of the city.

"Cities should have space for development, and if there are existing villages in this space, they should integrate into an amalgamated territorial community with a center in the city, and, of course, in this case, the city should make efforts to interest the residents of this village in joining the city," said Ihor Koliushko.

At the same time, during the administrative reform, there were many cases when village heads did not want to join urban communities to satisfy their own interests.

"As a result, we have a situation where in many suburban villages, the heads of these communities read that there should be urban expansion and so on, and came up with a way to combat this.

Why? Because they are the heads of rural communities, and they benefit the most from a situation where the village is very close to the city, but is not included in the urban territorial community. This leads to the fact that there is expensive land in the city, they want to build cottages there, and so on, but all this is not managed by the city, but by the village head and the village council, which is usually very strongly politically affiliated with the head, that is, generally dependent on the head. And so, in fact, guided by this, not wanting to lose this favorable status, the ability to sell land at a very high price, they came up with the idea that they could amalgamate not in the direction of the city, but in the opposite direction," the expert explained.

At the same time, Koliushko voiced the obvious advantages of including villages in urban communities.

"What can the city give? First of all, the residents of these villages, regardless of whether they are part of the community or not, use city schools, cultural institutions, educational institutions, and city medicine, and this is where the parasitism comes in. When a village is included in an urban community, all of this becomes available to the residents of that village, and there are no problems.

In addition, cities should immediately help them with transport infrastructure, with roads, that is, connect them in such a way that it would be more convenient for people to get to any part of the city.

Where it worked out well, where the cities were smart, where they promised all this to the villages, they agreed and went for voluntary amalgamation or accession," summarized Ihor Koliushko.

Optional

In a commentary to UNN, Trebukhiv village elder Andriy Tsakhlo said that after the village was included in the Brovary community of Kyiv region, it began to develop more dynamically, and there were positive changes in the communal sphere, in the areas of medicine, education and the provision of various services.

"It was definitely the right decision. The village has begun to renew and develop more dynamically. This is evident in the improvement of the village, healthcare, education, administrative services, etc. For example, our lyceum is designed for 800 students, and 200 pupils needed transportation to it. The school bus we had could only transport 75 students. We submitted an application, and with the assistance of the Brovary City Council and co-financing from the local and regional budgets, we received another bus, which is already operating on the route and transporting children. The lyceum has a completely renovated modern shelter that can accommodate all students. We are completing the renovation of the kindergarten shelter. A modern ventilation system has already been installed in the institution, and the replacement of sewer pipes is nearing completion. All our utility facilities are 100% ready for the heating season. We have a great situation with lighting, when we merged with the city, we got modern streetlights and new streets started to be illuminated," said Andrey Tsakhlo.

Recall

In an exclusive interview with UNN, Brovary Mayor Ihor Sapozhko said that the villages that became part of the community initially had many problems. In particular, Trebukhiv could not adopt a budget for three years in a row. The village was not developing, the problems had been accumulating for years, and they needed to be solved.