Land grabbing in Kyiv through a "toilet scheme": what city officials discuss and what they choose to keep silent about.

Hundreds, if not thousands, of instances of illegal land acquisition through the so-called "toilet scheme" – this is the statement made by the head of the Kyiv City State Administration, Timur Tkachенко, regarding the scale of illegal land transactions in the capital. In the future, there will be checks and annulments of illegal decisions, the official emphasized. Subordinates of the city mayor, Vitaliy Klitschko, assure that they have been fighting against unlawful property registration in recent years, under which fraudsters obtained communal land.

Meanwhile, members of the Kyiv City Council believe that a change in the approach to land issues is necessary to avoid corruption.

"Telegraph" found out which specific plots of land may be involved and whether it is truly as simple to rectify the accumulated violations of recent years.

Land is being sought for bushes and a garbage dump

Following the high-profile arrests of city officials suspected of corruption in the land and budget spheres, the issue of acquiring significant plots of land for ownership or lease under the so-called "toilet scheme" remains on the agenda. This term refers to dubious cases of obtaining rights to some minor "real estate," such as a garage, a street toilet, or even a fictitious building. Subsequently, the new owner approaches city authorities, requesting land for the object, often including adjacent plots, supposedly for servicing their property, and voilà — they receive a piece of land, on which they then begin constructing a high-rise residential building, a shopping center, etc. Such cases have repeatedly drawn the attention of officials and law enforcement from city activists and media.

One of the most striking "fresh" examples of fraud is the story of developers' plans to erect another "candle" in the Dobrovolskyi quarter of Podil. Here, among a cluster of residential buildings designed by a well-known architect, as reported by "Telegraph," LLC "Apartbudgroup" registered a small shed in its name. Then, based on ownership rights, the company requested a lease from the Kyiv City Council for a plot of land measuring 0.1479 hectares at 6-D Yekaterina Bilokur Street. Its designated purpose was indicated as "construction and maintenance of a multi-apartment residential building with trade, entertainment, and market infrastructure." Thanks to the concern of local residents and the intervention of the State Treasury, whose main office is located next to the disputed plot, law enforcement got involved. Initially, a seizure was imposed on the real estate, under the cover of which the private firm attempted to seize the land, and the prosecutor's office is trying to annul the private notary's decision regarding the registration of ownership rights for the shed. The decision to lease the plot was not submitted for consideration at the session of the city council due to the publicity surrounding the case.

In a similar scheme, LLC "Invest-Promotion" managed to register a non-existent underground public toilet on Mykola Hrynchenko Street near Baikove Cemetery. However, strangely, the area of the property grew almost sixfold from 123 to 638 square meters. These are the dimensions that the new structure, which has already begun construction behind a fence set close to burial sites and along a busy highway, will evidently have. In the Svyatoshyn district, according to the Kyiv City Prosecutor's Office, a deal to appropriate a 1,000 square meter land plot, which was in communal ownership, was halted. In this case, the fraudsters managed to create a technical passport for a house that did not actually exist. Instead, the plot contained only thickets of bushes and a garbage dump. But this did not prevent the firm from registering ownership rights to the imaginary property and claiming the land.

- The public council has repeatedly drawn attention to "toilet schemes," fictitious property, and other scandalous land issues at the meetings of the relevant commission over the past years, — noted Hennadiy Kryvosheya, the chairman of the public council at the KCSA, in a conversation with "Telegraph." – We have described these cases on social media. This includes the mentioned plot at 6-D Yekaterina Bilokur Street, which was removed from consideration, and the plot in the Solomianskyi district at 23-V Akademika Shalimova Street (formerly Heroes of Sevastopol), which was supported for allocation by the members of the Kyiv City Council last autumn. In this case, slightly more than 1 hectare will be allocated for fictitious property. It is stated that there is a building on the plot with an area of 72 square meters, but in reality, it does not exist, and there is also no information about it in the property rights registry.

Statement about hundreds of objects exists, but the public has not seen the list

The head of the Kyiv City Military Administration, Timur Tkachенко, in a statement released on February 10 through his channel and the pages of the KMA, spoke about another potential illegal land deal. This time in the Obolonskyi district near the "Pochayna" metro station. Here, at 19 Verbova Street, there are containers that, on paper, according to the official, are properties supposedly registered to some firm.

"In this case, as in hundreds of others, the fraudsters aim to seize not only the land under the containers; they carve out a much larger plot for their interests rather than for the community's benefit. We will not gift this or any other location to fraudsters; either they obtain the land transparently and legally at auction, pay a fair price, or they receive nothing. We have a list of plots across the capital that are being acquired for a pittance due to manipulations with legislation. There are indeed hundreds of objects (in the video description, it is mentioned that there could be thousands – Ed.), not isolated incidents. This is Kyiv land that is being stolen right in the yards of the capital's residents," — stated Timur Tkachенко. He also added that he would appeal to the Ministry of Justice of Ukraine demanding the cancellation of illegal registration actions and the prosecution of registrars who committed them.

"Telegraph" sent a request to the Ministry of Justice asking how widespread the practice of such decisions is for the capital, with a 20-day period for preparing a response. Through an assistant, the publication also offered Timur Tkachенко the opportunity to comment on his own statement. Specifically, to inform which areas of the capital suffer the most from land transactions, which firms most frequently utilize the illegal option for acquiring capital land, and how significant the losses for the capital's budget are due to the machinations of officials and businessmen, etc. The official request included a suggestion to provide a list of objects for publication on the website, as the public should understand the scale of the problem and see that the statements have a factual basis. However, no response has been received by the time of publication, although it is in the interest of the authorities to be transparent on a matter that has captured the attention of the capital's residents.

In turn, the Department of Land Resources of the KCSA (i.e., the subordinates of the city mayor, Vitaliy Klitschko) emphasized that in recent years they have actively fought against the so-called "toilet schemes." To support such a claim, they provided statistics: from 2020 to 2024, in the interests of the territorial community of Kyiv, 41 complaints regarding illegal registration of property and land plots of communal ownership have been submitted, 17 of which were satisfied by the Ministry of Justice of Ukraine. Meanwhile, the authorities also utilize the option of appealing to the court when it comes to dubious decisions. From 2019 to 2024, in particular, the Department of Land Resources submitted and supported 252 lawsuits to recognize illegal and annul decisions regarding state registration of rights to properties located on land plots of communal ownership. As of February 20 of this year, decisions have been made in favor of the territorial community of Kyiv in 58 cases.

Meanwhile, representatives of the public emphasize that it is essential to address both the already adopted decisions, under which the city has lost land due to "toilet schemes," and to consider what can be done in advance to minimize violations. In particular, the public council at the KCSA proposes such steps. Among them are expert evaluations of each draft decision of the Kyiv City Council, checking the legality and grounds for the emergence of property rights (currently, this is not checked), forming and registering land plots in the state land cadastre considering the intended use of the land, as well as ensuring that the sizes of properties correspond to the area of the land plot (it is illogical when a garage of 80 square meters is concerned). Moreover, according to Hennadiy Kryvosheya, amendments should be made to the regulations to ensure that legal and anti-corruption comments from the public are taken into account when considering land issues.

In harmony with these ideas is the proposal from Kyiv City Council deputies Victoria Ptashnyk and Dmytro Belotserkovets