A competition for the Moscow City Agglomeration Development Concept was announced by the Moscow Committee for Architecture and Urban Development at their website. The tender documentation explains that the authorities need this procedure due to the lack of an integrated project for the Moscow and Moscow region territories development. The primary concern in the list prepared by the Moscow Committee for Architecture for participants is excessive concentration of workplaces in the city centre and lack thereof on the outskirts. Citizens commuting to work create a “excessive labor migration” and a high load on the transportation system. The competition organizers also complain of the absence of joint cooperation between the Moscow authorities and those of Moscow region. “The city has almost exhausted its resources – territories, population, legislation, management,” says the Mayor’s Office. An ambitious task is set out – to develop a new scheme of resettlement that will decrease the present number of citizens living inside the Moscow Ring Road from 11.552 mn (official data for January 2011) to 8.5-9 mn. “It means we need to resettle over 2.5 mn Moscow citizens to the present territory of Moscow region,” states the document.

In June 2011, President Dmitry Medvedev set a task to expand Moscow with a further aim to move the federal bodies to the new territories and create the International Financial Centre there. Moscow has been officially expanded by 150,000 hectares since January 1, 2012 (joining the territories in the south-west between Kievskoe and Varshavskoe highways), and the capital city limit has been moved to the Kaluga region. 22 settlements have joined the city. The authorities expect to draft a budget of the Greater Moscow by July 1, 2012.

A full-scale resettling to the region is accompanied with a task to rapidly decrease the number of workplaces inside the MKAD by 1 ml (the total number of the city workplaces, according to the Mayor’s Office statistics, is 6.3 mn). Simultaneously, the new territories should create not less than 1.5 mn workplaces. Officers of the Moscow Committee for Architecture explain that the centre concentrates 35 per cent of all workplaces in the capital: most of them should be moved to the outskirts or even outside the borders of the Greater Moscow. Another task – the development of new offices should not harm the city’s green belt. The developers are expected to show not only the office location plans, but also detailed proposals on infrastructure and environment.

New territories southwest of the Ring Road are provisionally divided into three ‘planning zones’. The zone closest to the city will host state authorities. The White House and the Presidential Administration have been named among the first prospective candidates earlier, and the Moscow City Duma has even narrowed their future location to ‘between Podolsk and Troitsk’. The next planning zone will host science institutes, educational and medical facilities. The third and farthest zone has no particular designation so far.

The Mayor’s Office recognizes the fact that the relocated bodies will generate a new city center, therefore the planners are charged with placing enough ‘public facilities’ there as well, including offices. The government zone development project is set to become the most elaborate district in the Greater Moscow (with a third of all the concept tasks assigned to it). Thus, the developers are charged with producing the sketches of government territory development. The Moscow Architecture Committee states that the Greater Moscow development concept is planned for 30-50 years.

Head of the Moscow Duma Development and City Planning Committee Mikhail Moskvin-Tarkhanov said that the concept does not envision forced relocation of 2.5 mn citizens outside the city limit. “This is not a possibility. We mean to create new highly comfortable locations towards which suburbanization will gravitate, just as it happened in major US cities, says Moskvin-Tarkhanov. “If we do this right, creating high quality workplaces, offering cheap loans, we will solve the task”.

The documents state that participants of the tender may be both companies and private individuals. Foreigners and joint groups are welcome: the official languages are Russian and English. The key criterion is “experience in projects of similar kind and scope”. In today’s Russia, this is the first city planning tender of such magnitude. Architects Union President Anderi Bokov welcomes the city taking ‘the civilized route of an open tender’, instead of an ‘anonymous, behind-the-scene decision’.

The choice of participants is down to the expert group representing the Moscow Architectural Council, Moscow Planning Institute, Regional Ministry, Architects Union and the Russian Architecture Academy. Moscow Architectural Council hopes to collect applications within a month, picking 10 contractors by 24 February. Each will receive €250 thousand for the project. Moskvin-Tarkhanov thinks that the 10 contractors will present the Mayor’s Office with a ‘three-dimensional view’ of the Greater Moscow development.

However, some potential candidates have declined to take part. Vladimir Mau, Rector of the Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration, says he will not take part in the tender, with no further explanation. Yaroslav Kuzminov, Head of the Higher School of Economics, told us through his press officer that the School was expected to take part, however all further details are with Mr.Mau (the School of Economics cooperated with the Academy on the Russia 2020 development strategy). Primary results of the Greater Moscow development tender will be finalized by September 2012, when all the ten projects are set to be presented to the public.

Проектная группа №5