In August 2023, a scandal erupted in Petropavlovsk involving the so-called "cube" of houses on Nazarbayev, Mukanov and Ulyanov streets. According to local residents, in the early 2000s, officials sold off the courtyard area, which residents used as a car park, a children's playground, and a place for household waste, into private hands.
According to Ratel.kz, the land was resold several times, and then in August, the new owner began erecting a high fence and announced the start of construction of an elite apartment block.
The residents of the houses were baffled as to how the area had been removed from the housing stock, and why no action had been taken on it for 15 years. At the same time, they expressed fears that the construction could cause the old building to crack, and that the new development would block the route for fire engines and ambulances. Ultimately, the residents created a petition and gathered 200 signatures.
In turn, a representative of the developer - the director of Tamila Invest LLP, Marat Zhaketov, assured that in 2023 his company purchased the land for the construction of a 5-storey building, and that he had received all the necessary permits for development. The Petropavlovsk Akimat confirmed the developer's position.
Having failed to find support from the city authorities, the residents' initiative group approached the branch of the AMANAT party, where a citizens' reception on judicial and legal matters was taking place. The people were heard by a judge of City Court No. 2, Ulan Abdrakhmanov.
"You can appeal in court the actions of state bodies that allocated the land plot to the developer. A claim to the administrative court can be filed through the OSI (association of property owners) as an organisation representing the interests of residents. The new Administrative Procedural Code also provides for a pre-trial procedure for resolving disputes. But if your request to a state body is refused, then you should apply to the court," the judge explained.
The residents of the "cube" followed his advice. As a result, after months of proceedings, Petropavlovsk Court No. 2, having granted the claim of the Department for Land Resource Management of the North Kazakhstan Region, declared all transactions concerning the land plot invalid.
"According to the project, the composition of the first-floor floor and the roofing includes a flammable material as insulation - expanded polystyrene, in the event of a fire of which the houses could be affected. <…> The brick walls with a thickness of 380 mm are not justified by calculations for eccentric compression from the weight of precast reinforced concrete floor slabs 8.0 m long, which could lead to the collapse of the building," the court ruling stated.
The same court granted another claim against the Department of Architecture and Urban Planning of the Petropavlovsk Akimat to declare the APZs (architectural planning assignments) for the construction of the building, utilities, and landscaping illegal, citing that as a result of their issuance, the defendant had committed numerous violations of building codes and regulations.