In Odesa, a court dismissed the case against two developers who illegally built a store on a plot of land they had occupied without authorization near the sea in the area of the 8th Station of Velykyi Fontan.
This is stated in a ruling by the Primorsky District Court of Odessa.
According to the case file, in April 2020, one of the defendants decided to build a store on the site of the “Posmitno” cooperative parking lot at 11-A Literaturnaya Street in Odesa. This plot is located within a marine water protection zone and an archaeological cultural layer protection zone, and belongs to the city’s territorial community.
To obtain a building permit, the man used documents for another property—a garage he had once purchased but had long since sold to other people. Despite this, he ordered a technical passport for the “garage” at the address of his old house, even though there was in fact no garage there, and registered ownership of the nonexistent building.
He then gifted the “garage” to the second defendant. According to the investigation, the latter understood that there was no garage at all, and that the site was actually used as a parking lot.
Armed with documents for the supposedly existing garage, both obtained a permit not for new construction but for the “renovation” of this garage into a store—even though in reality no garage existed, and the project involved building from scratch without land rights. Construction took place from October 2020 to June 2021. After the project was completed, the building was even assigned a new address: 11-A Literaturnaya Street.
The investigation classified the actions of both men as unauthorized construction on illegally occupied land within a water protection zone, committed by a group of individuals.
The defense asked the court to dismiss the case due to a change in circumstances. Their arguments are as follows:
- in November 2022, one of the defendants gifted the store to a third party who is not a party to the case;
- the city authorities are already preparing documents to register the land for development in this person’s name;
- in June 2026, the same court denied the prosecutor’s request to demolish the building, revoke its registration, and vacate the land.
A representative of the city council objected, emphasizing that the decision regarding the land had not yet been made, and that the court’s ruling denying the demolition request had not yet taken legal effect. However, the representative did not appear at the hearing on July 14.
The court determined that neither of the defendants had previously been held liable, and that the offense itself is classified as a misdemeanor—meaning the formal conditions for exemption from liability are met. Taking into account the totality of circumstances—the transfer of the property to another owner, the initiation of the process to register the land in his name, the civil case lost by the prosecutor’s office, and the considerable time that has elapsed since the events—the court concluded that the defendants’ actions no longer posed a public danger.
The court specifically emphasized that such an exemption does not constitute an acquittal and does not imply that the actions were lawful.
As a result, the criminal proceedings were closed, and both defendants were acquitted of criminal liability. The ruling may be appealed.
Ірина Глухова