In Mykolaiv, there are plans to increase rent for businesses in parks tenfold

In Mykolaiv, the Budget Committee recommended that the Department of Finance draft a resolution to increase the rent for private businesses leasing space in the city’s parks and public squares—from 0.1% to 1%.

This was discussed ata meeting of the Mykolaiv City Council’s Standing Committee on Economic and Investment Policy.

The impetus for this was a request from the regional tax service, which pointed out that local rates did not comply with the provisions of the Tax Code.

Olga Goryachka, a representative of the Department of Architecture, explained the current situation.

“Currently, the land tax rate for parks and public squares—including the zoo—is 1%, while the rent for maintaining these parks and public squares is 0.1%,” she said.

Council members asked for clarification on exactly which tenants were being referred to. The example given was a café on the zoo grounds that rents space from a municipal enterprise.

“If there is a café on the zoo grounds, and that café is leasing municipal property, then that café pays the land tax. The zoo, like other parks, is exempt from paying land tax,” the speaker clarified.

Committee Chair Fedir Panchenko emphasized that the proposal to raise the rate applies exclusively to private businesses, not to the municipal institutions themselves:

“We all want to ensure that, by adopting such a decision, we don’t end up in a situation where our municipal enterprise ‘Parks’ or the zoo starts paying more, and we essentially have to provide them with funds so they can pay that money back into the budget. So, this commission is just lining the pockets of the banks,” said Panchenko.

He also distinguished between two situations—leases by municipal enterprises “for their own use” and leases of land to third parties.

“If we’re talking about raising the rate for third-party tenants from 0.1% to 1%, then that’s fine. But if it’s just so that our own municipal institutions can shufflemoney back and forth, then there’s no point in that,” added the committeechair.

As a result, the deputies unanimously (9 in favor) recommended that the Department of Finance prepare a corresponding draft resolution taking this caveat into account.

Ірина Глухова