Position: Deputy of the Kyiv Regional Council.
Qualification: Article 321 of the Civil Code of Ukraine. This article provides for civil confiscation of property if the court proves that it was acquired illegally.
Status: The Court of Cassation decided to return the illegally acquired land plots to state ownership.
The plot of the case: on October 6, 2022, the Office of the Prosecutor General of Ukraine legally returned 17 land plots in Konchi-Zaspa with a total area of 35.4 hectares to the ownership of the capital community.
Their last owner was Oleg Korban, a member of the Kyiv Regional Council. The law enforcement officers managed to prove that the Metropolitan City Council violated the law in 2007 by transferring this land within the landscape reserve "Zhukiv Island" to private ownership.
This case started back in 2020. Then, on August 14, 2020, the Holosiivskyi District Court, to which a lawsuit was filed by the Prosecutor General's Office for the return of land plots to state ownership, refused to satisfy the claims.
But in the future, the judges of the Kyiv Court of Appeal sided with the prosecutors, and on May 11, 2021, they partially satisfied the appeal of the law enforcement officers. The applicant of the cassation complaint was the owner of the specified plots, he is also the defendant in this case - deputy of the Kyiv Regional Council Oleg Korban.
In substantiation of its demands, the Office of the Prosecutor General noted that the Kyiv City Council, when transferring the specified plots of land to the service cooperative housing cooperative (OKZhK) "Kotmist" (it was this legal entity that received this land from the metropolitan community in 2007, subsequently the plots were "rewritten" several times to other persons). In this way, the Kyiv City Council went beyond its powers, which "is not an expression of the will of the territorial community of the city."
In particular, we are talking about the fact that the disputed land plots, the value of which is 451 million hryvnias (the price according to the normative monetary assessment, the market value is at least 2-3 times higher), are located within the landscape reserve of local importance "Zhukiv Island" and floodplains of the Dnipro River, which in accordance with the requirements of Ukrainian legislation - in particular the Laws of Ukraine "On Environmental Protection" and "On the Nature Reserve Fund of Ukraine" - makes it impossible for them to be in private ownership.
How did the land end up in private ownership ?
As I previously reported, on October 1, 2007, during the time of Mayor Leonid Chernovetskyi, the Kyiv City Council, by decision No. 355/3189, transferred 5 land plots with a total area of 74.69 hectares on 21 km of the Stolichnyi Shose to OKZHC "Kotmist": three plots with an area of 67.21 hectares (32.6 ha, 34.37 ha and 0.24 ha) were transferred into ownership for residential development, two more land plots with a total area of 7.48 ha (5.26 ha and 2.22 ha) were leased for 49 years for recreational purposes and improvement of the territory.
According to the adopted decision, the Kyiv City Council transferred a large part of these lands - 66.39 ha - from agricultural land to land reserved for residential and public development, defining their functional purpose as "zone of low-rise residential development". Also, part of the land was transferred to the "territory of green areas of limited use and special purpose".
It should be noted that the decision did not specify the area of such land and what was its previous functional purpose. At the same time, for the sake of such "forecasts", the capital authorities made changes to the General Plan of Kyiv, the program for the development of green zones and other documents.
It is about land in Konchi-Zaspa in the area of Olzhyn Island. Until 2007, this territory was partially part of the landscape reserve "Zhukiv Island" (in honor of the island of the same name, located to the north), created by the Kyiv Council in 1999. Officially, the "Kotmist" OKZHC got ownership of "fat" land in such an amount only because, according to Article 41 of the Land Code of Ukraine, housing and construction cooperatives and garage-construction cooperatives have the right to receive plots of land from the local authorities free of charge. As practice shows, this right can be exercised only on the basis of the "contract". This loophole is most often used by capital developers.
Later, on March 25, 2010, the Kyiv City Council, by decision No. 468/3906, made changes to the lease agreement for plots on 21 km of the Capital Highway due to the fact that "Kotmist" OKZHK refused part of the leased plot with an area of 48 hectares. It is also known that during the years 2010-2016, three plots with a total area of 67.21 hectares "privatized" by the cooperative ended up in the ownership of other legal entities - by adding the land to the authorized capital of various companies and its subsequent resale. At the same time, the specified land was divided into several dozen smaller plots. In the same period, the construction of the above-mentioned "Mezhihirya-2" began on several privatized plots. According to various data, the area of this facility was from 8,000 to 15,000 square meters. m.
Persons potentially involved in corruption schemes:
Yuriy Ivanyushchenko. It should be noted that, according to public sources, there is no direct connection between the "Kotmist" OKJK and Yury Ivanyushchenko. However, for example, as early as 2015, "Our Money" pointed to the relationship of this ex-people's deputy's entourage to one of the companies, to the authorized capital of which some disputed plots were contributed from the cooperative. Ivanyushchenko's estate, which, as we mentioned, is called "Mezhihirya 2" was also built on these plots.
Fortune:
In his declaration for 2024, Oleg Korban indicated that he owns 20 plots of land with a total area of 77,115,000 square meters. m and worth more than 8 million hryvnias.
Oleg Korban's wife also owns one apartment with an area of 49 square meters. m, purchased in 1998 for UAH 1,331,100, and a house with an area of 25 square meters. m, purchased in 2008.
Oleg Korban declared two watches purchased in 2007 and 2008 worth 175,000 hryvnias and 383,000 hryvnias as valuable property.
Oleg Korban's declaration shows one car owned by his wife, namely a 2003 Honda CRV.
Oleg Korban and his wife Lyudmila declared 191,185,000 hryvnias as wages and pensions, as well as 1,620,000 hryvnias of debt repayment income.
Oleg Korban and his wife also have savings both in cash and in bank accounts. Namely, the Korban family keeps 125,000 dollars in cash, and they keep 9,109,000 dollars and 122,000 hryvnias in bank accounts. Also based on the declaration, the Korban family lent 94,395,000 million hryvnias to third parties.
Scandals:
In 2019, Oleg Korban, a deputy of the Kyiv Regional Council, declared a gift from his mother, who gave him 19 million hryvnias. Then this event caused a wide resonance in the mass media. And law enforcement agencies have even started checking the legality of receiving such funds. Oleg Korban himself then stated that his mother gave him her savings, but he could not document it.
Persons who should have reacted:
It should be noted that the General Prosecutor's Office reacted to these actions on the illegal acquisition of land by Oleg Korban and obtained civil confiscation in court. But the case was not reclassified into a criminal proceeding, and accordingly, Oleg Korban did not bear any criminal responsibility for his actions.
Sources:
https://www.stopcor.org/ukr/dossier-person/person-korban-oleg-borisovich.html
https://public.nazk.gov.ua/documents/9d87b600-4a72-45b1-b4ba-1de52097b0e4