Komitas Construction Site Has Permit; Trees Likely Won’t Survive

[ 2010/05/07 | 11:48 ]
ecology society
Kristine Aghalaryan

It appears that the owners of the construction site at 60 Komitas
Street, a story Hetq has been covering since work began, have
permission from the Yerevan Municipality. Local residents had
contacted Hetq with pictures that workers had tried to pull the trees
from their roots to cart them away. Street trees are the property of
the Municipality and thus, by extension, they belong to city
residents. Unfortunately, property owners in Yerevan, or most of them,
view trees as an obstacle to their businesses and thus they will tear
them down if allowed.

Today, when we visited the site along with Romik Mangasaryan from the
Ministry of Nature Protection, who served notice to the workers not to
harm the trees. As you can see from the pictures, the trees probably
will not service anyway, given the debris and cement piled around
them.

Artashes, the construction site manager, showed us a copy of the work
permit but didn’t allow us to study the details. He assured us that
the trees wouldn’t be destroyed and that work was progressing
according to the law.

He verified rumors that a CPS gas station down the street would move
to the new site. The permit allows for work on a 50/7 meter parcel. In
the back, there is an office building close by. So we asked Artashes
if there would be enough room for cars to enter and gas up. He assured
us there was enough space.

When then started to photograph the workers and we asked them why they
cut down some trees and were trying to now remove the remaining
stumps. Artashes came over, fuming, and threatened `not only to break
our cameras but our heads as well.’

The workers said they were only following orders. Readers will
remember that just two days before the date of the work permit the
Municipality had stated that all work at the site had been halted.