Sienkevych changed his mind about giving the architect responsibility for cultural heritage protection: a separate unit will be created

Mykolaiv Mayor Oleksandr Senkevych. Photo: NikVesti

The Mykolaiv City Council has changed its plans for the fate of the Department of Cultural Heritage Protection, which was to be removed from the specialised department and transferred to the Department of Architecture as part of the structure reform. Now the mayor's office sees it necessary to create a separate structural unit responsible for the cultural heritage of Mykolaiv.

This was stated by the mayor of Mykolaiv, Oleksandr Sienkevych, in a comment to NikVesti.

As you know, the draft of the updated structure of the executive bodies of the city council, which is currently being discussed in the deputy commissions of the city council, provides for the transfer of the Department of Culture to the Department of Architecture to protect cultural heritage. However, according to the mayor, after a public discussion, the mayor's office abandoned this idea. Now they are planning to create a separate department that will report to a specialised deputy mayor.

«Recently, we received a very good proposal that we will not add the Department of Historic Preservation to the Department of Architecture. Instead, we will separate it from the Department of Culture and it will be a separate department that will report to the deputy mayor in charge of culture, but will not be part of the Department of Culture. This is an interesting proposal. We had an internal dialogue that even spilled over into the public sphere between the head of the Department of Culture and the director of the Department of Architecture. They agreed that we are ready to work with everyone. But to engage in public insinuations, I don't understand. We understand what is happening, why and what is in the interest of each person,» said Oleksandr Sienkevych.

As a reminder, the chief architect of Mykolaiv, Yevhen Poliakov, called the protection of cultural heritage an under-implemented area.

It should be noted that the Department of Culture, Nationalities and Religions of the Mykolaiv Regional Military Administration warns the Mykolaiv City Council that the transfer of the functions of protecting cultural heritage sites to the Department of Architecture and Urban Development could «create a potential conflict of interest».

Read more about this in the article NikVesti «How Mykolaiv can change its approach to the protection of historical buildings and what is behind it».