The Western Commercial Court of Appeal has held another hearing in the case concerning the annulment of the right to use a 0.66-hectare land plot in the centre of Lviv, where the Dobrobut market used to operate. Lviv Mayor Andriy Sadovyi attended the hearing together with the lawyers of Lviv City Council and personally presented the city’s position.
The dispute concerns the plot behind the Opera House, on the site of the former Dobrobut market. Lviv City Council is demanding that the right of TzOV SP ‘Halinvest’ to use this land be terminated, arguing that the right was formalised unlawfully, in particular through the use of forged documents.
According to Andriy Sadovyi, back in the 1990s the city and regional authorities planned to build a hotel at this location, for which the city adopted the relevant decisions, allocated land plots and relocated residents from 28 dwellings. However, the planned development never materialised; instead, the mayor claims, the investor company falsified documents that are now being examined in court.
“If you look at it objectively, there is a clear case of the community being deceived,” noted Lviv Mayor Andriy Sadovyi.
The Mayor stressed that, according to the city’s estimates, the losses suffered by the Lviv community as a result of this story exceed UAH 500 million, and therefore the case requires a fair court decision. He also pointed out that the expert examination carried out within the proceedings records a significant number of forged documents, and these circumstances, in the City Council’s view, must be taken into account during the hearing.
During the session, the court considered procedural motions, in particular regarding the inclusion in the case file of documents obtained by the City Council within the framework of criminal proceedings. The hearing of the case in the Western Commercial Court of Appeal will continue on 13 October.
As law enforcement agencies reported, in May this year the police exposed a state registrar suspected of involvement in land machinations related to the Dobrobut market site. According to the investigation, in 2020 representatives of the TzOV applied to the state cadastral registrar of the StateGeoCadastre Department to enter information on a 0.66-hectare land plot on Knyaz Osmomysl Square. Instead of refusing, the official made unauthorised changes to the information in the cadastre.
Earlier, Lviv City Council appealed to the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine and the Prosecutor General in connection with the case concerning the land of the former Dobrobut market. The City Hall also lodged a complaint with the High Council of Justice against the decision of Judge Oksana Dolinska of the Commercial Court of Lviv Region in this case.
The city is simultaneously preparing to redevelop this area. On 20 April, an architectural design for a public space planned on the site of the former market was presented to the public. The competition was won by the ‘Urbanideas’ team led by Olha Kryvoruchko. The concept envisages planting 245 trees, creating an underground car park that will also serve as a shelter, and forming a large open space with free access for residents and visitors to the city.
The design area is located in the historic part of Lviv, on the former suburb known as the ‘Krakidaly’ district. It lies within the UNESCO buffer zone and is adjacent to the Opera House and Staryi Rynok Square. At present, the site functions as a transit and commercial hub overloaded with traffic, while the dense historic development around it is effectively cut off from the pedestrian space.