In the Gagarin Park residential complex in the Bostandyk district of Almaty, a long-running conflict between residents and the owners of cafes on the ground floor continues.
According to Ratel.kz, the main cause of the dispute is a summer terrace and a ventilation system, allegedly built without permission. Residents say the ventilation creates noise and spreads the smell of food and hookah smoke.
The chairman of the Commonhold Property Association (CPA) of Gagarin Park, Galymzhan Dyusenbayev, stated that after the building was commissioned in 2018, cafes and other commercial establishments opened on the ground floors.
According to Dyusenbayev, one of the establishments unlawfully installed a summer terrace on the residents' shared territory. Furthermore, the cafe premises were designed for office use, and its noisy ventilation spreads the smell of food and hookah smoke.
The conflict escalated into a series of court proceedings. First, the cafe tenant Daniyar Kumaruly, and then the property owner Gulmira Kaukakova, tried to challenge the election of the CPA chairman. This was likely an attempt to remove the inconvenient Dyusenbayev. Both lawsuits were unsuccessful.
In turn, the CPA filed a counterclaim for the dismantling of the summer cafe and ventilation. The Urban Planning Department confirmed that the veranda project had not been approved. The court upheld the CPA's demands, a decision that was upheld on appeal and by the Supreme Court.
The situation changed when Main Events Kazakhstan LLP appealed the decision to demolish the summer cafe. The company argued that the court had ordered the property owner, Kaukakova, to destroy property belonging to the tenant.
The court granted the LLP's appeal and overturned the Bostandyk District Court's decision to dismantle the summer terrace and ventilation. The basis for this was a document allocating the plot under the summer cafe to Bi Realty Almaty LLP and Yenshiles Shazhanbayev.
However, the residential complex residents claim the document is forged – it lacks signatures, seals, and numbers. According to them, Government for Citizens NJSC refused to provide the requested information to the lawyer. The CPA also notes the absence of any contractual relationship with the company.
Currently, to resolve the issue, the residents of the residential complex are preparing an appeal to the Supreme Court of the Republic of Kazakhstan and a petition to the Presidential Administration.