Conflict between Riga City Council and environmental activists continues due to Skanstes district / Article / LSM.lv

Provocations and slanders – this is how the City Development Department of the Riga City Council (RD) calls the concerns expressed by environmental organizations that the improvement of Skanstes district has started without taking into account the animals living in the current small garden quarter. To try to refute the allegations, the City Development Department and the Skanstes Development Agency held a special event on Tuesday, June 30. –

The development of the Skanstes neighborhood is associated with grandiose plans for Riga Municipality – in cooperation with foreign investors and real estate developers, it is planned to create a modern center of Riga with offices and residential buildings, parks and other necessary infrastructure.

Recognizing the need to develop the neighborhoods of Riga, environmental organizations emphasize that such projects must be implemented with respect for the environment, which is sorely lacking, for example, in starting to improve former small gardens.

The friends of the animals complain that the builders no longer allow them into the territory and do not allow them to follow the progress of the construction works, but in the meantime they arbitrarily catch adult hedgehogs and other animals, deciding to starve the dead babies.

“Unfortunately, at the moment it seems that receiving a building permit in May is such an argument for non-compliance with the animal protection law,” said Diāna Elekse, a representative of the Animal Police Foundation.

In turn, the client of the project – RD City Development Department accuses environmental organizations that they thicken paints.

“We have not seen foxes and everything else mentioned in the public space at all. Neither bunnies nor bats. All this is a bit embellished, ”said Ilze Purmale, Director of the City Development Department.

Both sides are armed with expert opinions. The ornithologist Kārlis Millers, hired by the builders, has found only 11 species of birds in the territory of Skanste small gardens and allowed the construction works to resume as early as July 1.

On the other hand, Andris Dekants, a secret ornithologist of environmental organizations, has recorded 34 bird species in the territory, including seven protected ones, and has concluded that the construction works will have to wait at least another month.

The decisive word in this situation belonged to the Nature Protection Board, and this time it turned to the builders. Say ‘- you can’t understand anything with those birds either.

“You see – it’s always more controversial with those birds than with botany. I am a dendrologist – this tree is either there or it is not. With birds differently – one day an ornithologist will come, this bird will be detectable. The second is coming – there will be no more, ”said Andrejs Svilāns, Director General of the Nature Protection Board.

“It simply came to our notice then. We also had a TV story yesterday that a little bunny had suffered while mowing the grass. There will always be something, but I think that in this case a reasonable compromise has been reached between the interests of preserving biological diversity and the development of the city, ”said Svilāns.

Representatives of the City Development Department promise that the reconstruction of the territory of the former small gardens into a park will be continued in constant consultation with environmental experts.

“We are open to all animal advocacy organizations, but if we are constantly trying to fix us for some kind of beast, then the reaction is what she is,” said Purmale.

The reconstruction of the Mazdārziņi territory is planned to be completed by the end of 2022, and the project costs would be less than 20 million euros, of which a little more than half is covered by the Riga City Council, and the rest by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) and state budget grant.

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