In Voznesensk, councillors filed a lawsuit over the construction of a mental health centre on the site of a park with «memorial trees»

The memorial alley, where they want to build the Mental Health Centre, is located in front of the Voznesensk City Council building, photo by NikVesti

A group of deputies from the Voznesensk City Council filed a lawsuit with the Mykolaiv District Administrative Court demanding that the decision to locate the Mental Health and Development Centre at 3 Tsentralna Square be overturned.

This was announced on Facebook by independent deputy Viktor Osadchenko.

The lawsuit was filed by four councillors. They claim «numerous violations of current legislation– and believe that the city council's decision paves the way for the development of an area that should remain a public space and green zone.

In a comment to NikVesti, people's deputy Oleh Serdeha (Batkivshchyna party) noted that this place is an important memorial site and has symbolic value for the residents of Voznesensk. In his opinion, the Mental Health Centre should not be built near the city council. In addition, he said that there were procedural violations during the allocation of land for construction.

«We have already started to fight them. We have appealed to the court, let the court decide the issue. Most of the deputies are corrupt, they sold the memory of these guys who gave their lives for them. And they need a Mental Health Centre there. And the Mental Health Centre, as I understand it, the word 'health' implies that it should be a hospital. But a hospital cannot be located near the city council on the square. That is what we fought for. They also violated the procedures for allocating land,» the deputy believes.

Let us remind you that we are talking about the construction of the «Centre for Mental Health and Community Development» — a project that the Voznesensk City Council submitted to the state platform DREAM. The total estimated budget for the project is 20 million hryvnias.

The Mental Health Centre construction project, published in the DREAM system

The construction of the Centre has been accompanied by conflicts since the issue was first considered at the session. At a meeting of the Voznesensk City Council, during the consideration of the issue of the construction of this Mental Health Centre, the mayor, Yevhenii Velychko, began to swear at the deputies because they did not support the draft decision.

The site was chosen close to the city council building, where in 2015 the mothers of fallen soldiers planted trees in memory of their sons. This is what caused the deputies to have doubts and be unwilling to vote for the project.

Despite the discussions, in August 2025, the deputies finally passed the decision to designate a plot for construction on their second attempt.

At the session on 6 February 2026, deputies made changes to the socio-economic development programme. This draft decision allocates 1.5 million hryvnias for project documentation for the construction of the Mental Health and Community Development Centre.