The CSO Anti-Corruption Coalition of Armenia issued a joint statement regarding the rates of local fees for paid parking lots in the Yerevan community for 2024  .

“Since 2016, the annual illegal mandatory fees for the so-called paid parking “red lines” are considered a serious problem in the city of Yerevan. From the very beginning, this legal regulation, which has been a serious target of civil society criticism for many years was illegal. Calling those illegal “red lines” illegal, the current authorities fought against it and promised the people that they would eliminate those illegal “red lines” after coming to power.

Unfortunately it didn’t happen. Although, based on our many alarms and suggestions, their application was removed from the territory of the entire republic and limited only to the territory of 2 administrative districts of Yerevan city: Arabkir and Kentron, but the problem was not solved. On the contrary, instead of solving the problem with reasonable solutions, the new political authorities, made the problem even more complicated and the rates set for these illegal “red lines” were multiplied starting from 1 January, 2024.

Thus, at the meeting of the Council of Elders of the city of Yerevan held on 26 December, 2023, Decision No. 43-N of the Council of Elders dated 26 December, 2023 on setting the rates of local fees in the Yerevan Community for 2024 was adopted (hereinafter: Decision).

Mainly agreeing with the logic and rates of local fees defined by the Decision, the CSO Anti-Corruption Coalition of Armenia characterizes as problematic and unjustified the multifold increase in the rates of fees for parking a motor vehicle in a parking lot on the streets and squares of Yerevan for public use (except for courtyard areas, educational, cultural and health institutions, adjacent areas of administrative buildings of state administration and local self-government bodies), as defined by Part 29 of the Annex to the Decision, compared to the rates of 2023.

The Coalition also expressed its opinion during the public discussion of the Decision held on 1 December, 2023 in the Yerevan Municipality, and also posted its opinion on the official website of the RA Ministry of Justice, on the platform for public discussions of draft legal acts.

Parallel to its opinion, the Coalition considers that the application of local fees for paid parking spaces established by the Decision in its current format (marking of red lines) and content do not comply with the RA Constitution and legislation and they violate the relevant provisions of at least 10 legal normative acts and especially the RA Constitution (with amendments of 2015) the rights declared by Article 60, Part 8 on the right to property and Article 40, Part 4 on the right to free movement.

Accordingly, in accordance with the current practice and the legal regulations defined by the Decision, RA citizens pay a local fee for a service (so-called “red lines”):

1. which are not paid parking spaces in accordance with the requirements of many normative legal acts of the RA legislation and do not comply with urban development norms, which define that a paid parking space is an engineering structure outside the roadway, with a separate entrance and exit and guarantees the safety of cars parked there .
2. moreover, these “red lines” are drawn on the 1st lanes of traffic road, thus hindering the enforcement of traffic rules,
3. in fact, no service is provided on those “red lines” and the safety of cars parked there is not guaranteed,

• the rent rates set for those “red lines” are not justified and ten times exceed the purchasing power of the RA citizens in line with the socio-economic conditions created in the country .

We characterize the continuation of such policy by the Yerevan Municipality as illegal and not in accordance with the standards of effective management, which in addition to not contributing to unloading the center of Yerevan, is not aimed at solving the problems of the people of Yerevan, but will definitely contribute to the increase of corruption risks in the framework of the revenue formation of the budget of the city of Yerevan. With this policy, the Yerevan Council of Elders and the Staff of the Yerevan Municipality are trying to shake off their inaction in the direction of unloading the center of Yerevan and placing the blame for this on the citizens of Armenia.

Based on the above, we call on the Yerevan Council of Elders:

1. To suspend the operation of section 29 of the Decree and repeal it in its entirety,
2. In order to unload the center of Yerevan, plan the construction of underground and on-ground paid parking spaces provided by construction standards in the center of Yerevan, at least 4 or 5, and in other administrative regions.
3. To take active measures in the direction of strict observance of urban development norms in the city of Yerevan,
4. To establish strict control in the direction to fulfilling the construction requirements of many buildings under construction with their own parking spaces, and to leave free spaces for parking lots in their adjacent areas in order to maintain the city planning norms.