OREANDA-NEWS. December 27, 2007.  A consultative meeting has been held with RA Prime Minister Serzh Sargsyan on questions of town-planning. The meeting was attended by Minister of Urban Development Vardan Vardanyan, Mayor of Yerevan, Chairman of Council on Urban Development Yervand Zakharyan, Chief Architect of Yerevan Samvel Danielyan, Chairman of the Union of Architects Mkrtich Minasyan, Director of "Arm-Project" company of the Board of the Armenian Builders Union Grigor Azizyan, Director of "Yerevan-Project" SNCO Gurgen Musheghyan, notorious architects and sculptors of the Republic.

While speaking about the major town-planning problems facing Yerevan, the Prime Minister expressed his vision of how to make the capital more convenient for its inhabitants and visitors and proposed for discussion the question of what was necessary to do in order Yerevan might continue completing its mission as the capital of all Armenians. Serzh Sargsyan admitted that there were numerous challenges facing Yerevan inclusive of refuse collection, municipal transport etc., however, as he said, all of them stemmed from the town-planning problems. By noting that the funds allocated for realization of town-planning programs in Yerevan grew year after year, the Prime Minister pointed out to the importance of their effective utilization in order to preclude the emergence of new challenges after the realization of any project. "After all, you should be the ones most concerned thereabout as the governments and prime ministers come and go away, while your name remains on the monuments created by you," - the Prime Minister said to the experts in attendance.

Chairman of the Urban Development Council, Mayor of Yerevan Yervand Zakharyan mentioned that prior to the adoption of the general development plan of Yerevan in 2005, the city used to be developed in somewhat unjustified and spontaneous manner. In stating that attempts are being made to streamline the process, he outlined his vision of those primary issues of greatest concern. He said that after formulating the general approaches to their decision, it would be necessary to carry out specific work. Along with the questions associated with the development of the capital, the Mayor mentioned the need of developing transport communications, the subway network, restricting the scope of town-planning programs for the city centre which is overloaded and dense enough, as well as civil works on domestic territories.

Among the main challenges, the meeting participants have mentioned the reduction of green zones, the preservation of historical-architectural layers. They also indicated the need of transiting towards underground parking lots as soon as possible, streamlining and control of town-planning criteria, establishing more stringent requirements for building projects, as well as a number of other questions. The preservation and harmonious development of the original configuration of the capital city during the implementation of town-planning programs, the maintenance of conformity with its sufficiently high construction standards and the satisfaction of inhabitants’ individual requirements in line with the humanistic approaches based on Tamanian’s architectural principles, the perception of the city as a complex and simultaneously uniform organism have been emphasized.

The meeting participants stressed the importance of similar discussions with the head of the government which evidenced a general concern and made it possible to speak freely about the positive aspects of development, as well as to examine the existing problems, mistakes, shortfalls and eventual corrections. In this light, they recalled the Prime Minister’s latest visit to the Yerevan State University of Architecture and Engineering and those interested discussions held on town-planning items that bore testimony to the consistency of the head of government and his close attention toward these important issues.

Having thanked those in attendance for a productive discussion, Prime Minister Serzh Sargsyan expressed hope that the meeting might have benefited to all of them. He said to have been well aware that a single discussion could not generate comprehensive remedies for the decision of all the problems available, nonetheless this gathering was another opportunity to hear the approaches of all sides and discuss ways for their decision. In conclusion, the Prime Minister instructed the Chairman of the Urban Development Council to sum up the outcomes of the meeting and, based thereon, organize discussions like this on a regular basis so as to find definitive solutions to the questions raised.