Kaunas government plans in Ąžuolynas are already turning into detective

The value of the ruins is almost half a million euros.

When the public was outraged by the Kaunas municipality’s decision to convert a part of Ąžuolynas, a 3.35 ha commercial parcel into a huge parking lot, which was intervened but was not formally part of the park, the Seimas members also they began to examine this situation.

They reached not only more than 9 thousand. a petition signed by the people on the preservation of the integrity of the Kaunas Ąžuolynas park, but also an appeal from a group of public organizations.

“We want to find out before it is too late,” said Vytautas Juozapaitis, a member of Parliament, at the joint meeting of the Culture and Environmental Protection Committees.

Kaunas Deputy Mayor Andrius Palionis, who participated in the meeting remotely, reiterated what the municipality is currently actively broadcasting: this decision is just an attempt to start the territorial planning procedure, which will become this plot ; the public will also be consulted. And there is a rush to take advantage of this area for public needs, because the entrepreneurs who manage the buildings in it are already thinking about construction.

“The buildings belong to a company related to Antanas Etner, a property developer,” said MP Šbernickas.

This businessman is a former adviser to the mayor of Kaunas, Visvaldas Matijošaitis, friend and business partner of his son Šarūnas Matijošaitis.

It seems that the parliamentarian has only repeated the deliberations that have been floating in the public space for some time, that the interests of the mayor of Kaunas, V. Matijošaitis, are supposed to exist here. This was also mentioned in the appeal of public organizations.

“Taking buildings owned by a private UAB for public needs could be justified, were it not for the fact that some of the buildings named simply do not exist, and their market value is registered in the public registry around 450 thousand. euros. That the current owner of the buildings took over the property only in 2019 under unclear circumstances from the bankrupt owner, and just prior to the transfer of this property, the municipality, as a client, made changes to the detailed plan.

Therefore, it is involuntary that this decision, under the guise of a fictitious appropriation of land for public use, could try to seize the remains of buildings in the area for public use by redeeming them to the owners at a ‘market price’ registered in a public record.

The ambiguous commercial relations of the owners of the new buildings with the politicians of the Kaunas City Council, people with positions of responsibility in the institutions subordinate to the municipality and Vieningu Kaunas also raise reasonable doubts about the transparency of this administrative process, the document states.

The value of the buildings will be determined by independent appraisers.

During the meeting of the Seimas committees, the suspicions that the representatives of the municipality did not say anything until the end were further strengthened.

“The former owners of this area have not kept the greenhouses. They are not physically present, only in theory, and the price is 450 thousand.”, Said the former mayor of Kaunas, member of the Seimas Andrius Kupčinskas.

Finally, it has been clarified that this land belongs to the state, is administered by the National Land Service, and in 2016 the lease contract with the companies that operate here was terminated. The company that bought the buildings tried to appeal this decision to the court, but it remained unchanged.

The fact that Paulius Keras, the deputy director of the Kaunas municipal administration, who participated in the remote meeting of the Seimas committees, also took over the land for the needs of society, is not assumed by the state, but only for the private buildings in it.

The question of who will receive the impressive amount of money that the municipality will have to pay to compensate the owners of the buildings that will be absorbed has not been answered. Furthermore, the relationships of the owners with the environmental person of V. Matijošaitis, the businessman A. Etner, were neither confirmed nor denied.

P. Keras, representative of the municipality of Kaunas, only hinted that almost 0.5 million. it will not necessarily be paid, and the exact value of so-called dilapidated buildings will be determined by independent property appraisers. The impressive amount recorded in the Records Center is explained by the fact that these figures appeared during a massive appraisal, because real estate prices in this prestigious Kaunas district are soaring.

The businessman denies ties to the owner of the building

Is there really any connection here with the environment of the mayor of Kaunas, V. Matijošaitis? When the “Delfi” portal got in touch with A. Etner himself, the businessman ironically said that perhaps it would be quite fun to own a property on this plot, which caused many passions.

He categorically denied any connection to the owners of the buildings, calling the rumors unfounded conspiracy theories that fueled and misled the public.

The businessman said he was delegated by the municipality to the board of Stoties turgus, where 51 percent of the shares are owned by the municipality. The remaining 49 percent of the shares belong to individuals, 13 percent is owned by UAB Trasanta.

According to Delfi, Saulius Tumonis is the director of Trasanta, which manages the buildings acquired on a plot that has caused a lot of passion. He is also a long-term director of Stoties turgaus.

The company “Trasantos” may be related to the Kaunas Gintaras Skobas entrepreneur, on his personal website, in the contact section, the e-mail address operating in the Internet name zone (domain – ed.) Is indicated Belonging to this company. According to the Records Center data, this company has two main shareholders, Algis Skobas and Kristina Skobienė, who, according to the sources, are the parents of G. Skobas.

G. Skobas is also a member of the board of directors of Stoties turgus, a company managed by S. Tumonis, whose shareholder is Trasanta.

Mr. Etner mentioned Mr. Tumonis, his so-called “friend,” who works on the Station Market board on different sides of the barricades on long-scheduled problems. Although the municipality owns 51 percent of the shares of the company, it cannot fully control, or even change, the director. This requires 75 percent of shareholder votes, and that majority has not been achieved for several years. Although the majority of the company’s shares belong to the municipality, they cannot be controlled effectively.

“I represent the municipality on the board, and the director – the other shareholders who appointed him. I saw this person for the first time and only met him when he was appointed to the Board of Station Market, I really don’t know anything about the plans of another company that he runs in Ąžuolynas,

V. Matijošaitis accuses the former leaders of Kaunas of dividing the territories

With the seemingly unfounded connections of the building’s owners with the surroundings of the mayor of Kaunas ringing in the public space, the municipality circulated a message trying to blame the politicians who ruled the city against V. Matijošaitis.

The mayor of the city himself calls the decision to install a parking lot in Ąžuolynas, which caused many passions, “return of the parcel territory to Ąžuolynas”, and he repeats that there will not be nor will there be a huge parking lot.

“It is difficult to understand what the old Kaunas politicians wanted, to divide the territories around the Oak with easy hand and quietly hand them over to the privateers one by one. These machining schemes may have once been the norm, but certainly not now. We are finishing collecting all the parceled areas so that they can return to the city, ”said Kaunas Mayor V. Matijošaitis.

The report claims that after the city reclaimed the Dainai Valley and accelerated the procedures for acquiring land in Vytautas Park for the needs of society, the last stage remained: the so-called 3.34-hectare Magnus territory in the Vydūnas alley. It was granted commercial area status and this area of ​​land was leased for 99 years. Since then, the plot has been owned by private companies and, more recently, entrepreneurs have had the ambition to develop real estate projects here, build residential homes or even a hotel.

The municipality justifies: parking – just a formality

However, with the promises of the Kaunas authorities that Ąžuolynas will definitely not be huge, almost 2 thousand. The parking lots of the places are questioned for the purpose indicated in the decision to take control of the territory itself: not to install anything other than parking.

Trying to get out of the difficult situation, the representatives of the municipality of Kaunas already assure that it was a “technical detail” to do a good job: return the plot to the public and Ąžuolynas.

It must be recognized that the decision of the city council to initiate the seizure of this object for public use, specifying a possible specific purpose, the parking spaces, has caused controversial public reactions, but here we must explain in a very simple way that article 45 of the Land Law only provides for specific cases that are possible: cemeteries, landfills, airports, land and border protection, railways, mineral construction, education, sports, health and other public facilities, and similar cases, none of which would be logical in this case.

Therefore, it is natural that one of the given options was chosen, but it is very important to understand that this does not mean that the city will turn the area from a picturesque setting into a huge parking lot; It is not and cannot be. This plot would perfectly serve the convenience of all Kaunas residents, from playgrounds to other recreational infrastructure, ”Paulius Keras, deputy director of the Kaunas municipal administration, cited in the municipal report.