Azeri Home Demolition Threat

Utility providers are moving to destroy houses that they say are illegally built near electricity pylons, gas pipelines and other infrastructure despite appeals from their owners.

The owners of the houses say they receive no compensation, and some are threatening to take the government to court over the campaign.

“I bought this patch of land together with a small building in 2001 in the local government office,” said Salman Akhundov, a resident of the town of Khirdalan outside Baku, whose house is directly underneath a high-voltage power line.

“Then Khirdalan did not have the status of a separate town and was administratively part of Baku. I paid 3,500 manats (2,800 US dollars) for this property, and another 300 manats for the title deed.

“A few years have passed, and it turns out that the documents from the municipality and local administration have no legal force. How could I think that documents obtained by a state structure could be fictitious? And we’re not just talking about me, there’s a whole region built on the basis of these same documents.”

He said a commissioner from Azerenergy, a power company, had come to their street at the start of the year, taken pictures of the pylons and written them all down on a list. The company said nothing specific about destroying their houses, but Akhundov is very concerned.

“Our houses and documents have been declared illegal, which means that if the area is destroyed, we won’t be paid compensation and will just be thrown onto the street,” he said.

His concern seemed more than justified after a recent press conference by Azerenergy chief executive Etibar Piriverdiev, who told reporters that all houses beneath power lines had to be destroyed. He said the lines posed a threat to the health of people living beneath them, while the houses also stopped repair crews approaching the pylons in the event of an accident.

“For this reason you can expect an immediate removal of such houses,” he said.

A spokesman for the company said inspectors had identified some 3,000 illegal houses in regions all around Baku, and had already appealed to the government for permission to remove them.

A parallel investigation has been undertaken by gas company Azerigaz, who have compiled a list of buildings they want removed.

According to Kamal Tarverdiev, deputy head of its environmental safety department, the company had identified 5,317 properties built too close to gas pipelines, of which 2,814 were in Baku, 543 in the nearby Apsheron region and the rest scattered around the country. Some 70 per cent of the buildings were houses, while the rest were restaurants, shops, and other businesses.

“Our organisation has.. warned the authorities about the unacceptability of houses being located near to the gas pipelines,” said a spokesman for Azerigaz.

And SOCAR, the Azerbaijan state oil company, has joined the campaign against the unregulated buildings.

“SOCAR has appealed to a court against 140 residents of our settlement, and I am one of them. The oil company is just winning one case after another, and after each case the bulldozers remove the house of the losing owner. Soon they will come to our home too,” said Tamerlan Qaziev, who lives in a region called the 20th Land Plot just outside Baku.

He said that he bought his house three years ago from the local municipality for 14,000 manats, but it turned out that SOCAR actually owned the land and the authorities had no right to sell it.

“They opened an account for us, installed meters for gas, power and water. We make all the payments to the local municipality for communal services and ground rental on time, and they assured me in the municipality that if we are paying the state all the payments then everything is legal. But now, it is us who are suffering. SOCAR is punishing us, this is unfair,” he said.

A spokesman for SOCAR denied treating the residents unfairly, and said it had also appealed to the prosecutor for action to be taken against the local administration. The prosecutor’s office said it was currently investigating.

Prosecutors opened a criminal case against Ahmad Aliev, head of the Sabail municipal administration which controls the 20th Land Plot, last year in connection with illegal land sales. He is currently on the run, and has yet to appear before a court.

The government stopped municipalities from selling land in 2007 and court cases are ongoing regarding other regions of the country where illegal sales occurred.

“I was elected head of the municipality in 2009. All illegal land deals were sealed in the period of the previous [administration]. At the moment [its] activities are being investigated by prosecutors. If [any] guilt is proved, [they] will have to answer before a court,” said Eldar Ahmadov, head of the Khirdalan municipal administration.

Such cases would not, however, prevent ordinary citizens from having their houses destroyed. Yalchin Imanov, a lawyer, said that those who paid the local administration for patches of land were themselves victims and should appeal to the courts too.

“The removal of these houses is mainly based on the 180th article in the civil code. It says there that any construction built independently [of the authorities] does not give it property rights. However, the European Court has made a precedent-setting decision in this situation. By international law, if the authorities did not react and did not stop the process during the period of construction, then they have implicitly recognised the property rights of these structures,” he said.

“According to conventions ratified by Azerbaijan… in the case of contradictions between domestic and international laws, the second takes precedence.”

He said that people whose houses had been declared illegal should appeal to local courts and even the European Court of Human Rights, “Only there can they assert their rights as property-owners.”

Kifayat Haqverdiyeva is a freelance journalist.