There are no pavements for pedestrians.
If pavements appear, they soon disappear.

5 new BUILDINGS mean approximately 30 000 M2 EXTRA Residential Space, with about 935 NEW Residents and the space for parking space is equal to 40 CARS © City Hall.
In a city centre 100 m2 flat gets ⅔ of a parking space © City Hall.

One of the buildings has been constructed for 12 years. The building demolished an old pine-tree garden.
The garden was in danger of demolishment many times. Neighborhood struggled to save it until 2005.

By the standard of World Health Organization, 50m2 is an obligatory amount of a green space per person in a city. Only 2-5 m2 amount of a green space is determined per person in Tbilisi.

59 official addresses of Parks and public gardens are indicated in City Hall document. These addresses include flowerbeds and street separation lines covered with grass. One of the official addresses indicates Hero’s Square and those flower pots, which hang on the railings of a highway surrounding the Square.

Small gardens are under reconstruction for last few years. Renovated gardens are mostly covered with cement with only few plantations around. As American urban activist and author Jane Jacobs says, “Parks act less on their surroundings than the surroundings act on them.”

Vake Park history starts in 1946 and counts 71 years. At first this park was meant to cover 200 Hectares - from its entrance until the Turtle Lake. From time to time the the park zones and planning system has been changing. After 71 years, Vake Park holds only 189 003 square metres of the land, which is 4 times less than the primary plan.

Green City

Each public space, park or a small garden is vital part of every city and they are all public property.Though today’s legislation still gives authoritative people a chance to transform a public space into one’s property. It’s easy - a new function will be given to a specific territory and citizens will have limited access to it. A lot of public spaces have been transformed into buildings and business centres during last 20 years. These cases are justified by these universal words - in the name of public interest.

Constructions of Hotel Budapest was stopped by urban activists. They’re protests and manifests lasted for one year and finished with a lawsuit. The verdict said: “The court cancels the permit of the constructions of Hotel Budapest. March 2, 2016”
The land which was protected by urban activists covers 2863 m2. After 2012 it is a private property of L.T.G. “Graali”. This territory does not officially belong to Vake Park, though the land is in recreational space which means that it is under restrictions of “Recreational Zone 2” and as we can read in the document accepted by City Assembly in 2009, constructions of a hotel is forbidden in “Recreational Zone 2”. Besides this restriction, investor had an official order released in 2013 by Gigi Ugulava (Former Mayor of the city). This order was giving out the permission to change the status of the zone and give an investor access for constructions.

No one has the right to cut a tree - says the law. Except some special occasions. And such special occasions are quite many. Everyone has a right to cut a tree, IF: A tree damages a building, or a tree obstructs construction process A tree has an illness, which can not be cured The trees cut by the reason of special occasions have special price. The price is fixed by the species of a tree, it’s annual circle and diametre. The price for those trees which are in the “Red List” for its rare species are also fixed by the number of annual circles. One annual circle for a needle type tree costs 100 GEL; for leafy type tree - 50 GEL.

Permissions given out by the City Municipality during last 7 years counts 4922 orders. 93 409 trees were cut down for sanitary purposes during last 7 years. 1260 times more trees were cut in 2016, than in 2013 and 55 time more, than in 2014 and 4 times more than in 2015.

Academ City

46 New residential buildings were built in Campus Town after 2000
Recreational zone has decreased for 6 % after 2005.
45% of 46 residential blocks has consistent increase for K2 (additional flats.)
High buildings constructed close to each other, are not meeting the general insulation and ventilation regulations.

Revaz Lortkipanidze Doctor of Economics
Magda Karasashvili 25 years old

In many cases, developers had already constructed the buildings, when special zone agreements were set. Afterwards, developers could not add additional underground parking space and in the end transport infrastructure does not correspond to the increased density of the buildings. After the constructions from 2000 Tbilisi has a totally new area which: is densely populated without public transport access overloaded by car jams lacking the parking space.

Project By:

Maradia Tsaava

Tatuli Omiadze

Sophiko Vasadze

Web-developer:

Tamuna Kapanadze

Special Thanks To:

Elene Asatiani

Nino Lomadze

Sopo Begashvili

Gogi Abashidze

Sandro Asatiani

Dato Gagnidze

Ekaterine Shalutashvili

Erekle Urushadze

Mariam Bakradze

Nano Zazanashvili

Levan Kalandarishvili