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Five social-liberal priorities for a modern Chisinau

Us, the residents of Chisinau, we are sick of failures. We are sick of seeing the historical and cultural patrimony of Chisinau destroyed. We do not want any longer to pay exaggerated tariffs for electricity and heating. We do not want any longer to breathe polluted air and to lose the time in streets, being late at work. We do not want any longer to pay astronomic rent taxes comparable with those from rich countries. We do not want any longer to let the city authorities decide our fate without consulting us.

We want a nice, modern, civilised, safe, clean city to attract tourists and investments, with a downtown where people to be able to work effectively and rest freely. We want modern apartments for reasonable prices. We want the poor people to be protected. We want fast and comfortable transport. We want good roads with civilised and durable markings. We want new and responsible motorists to listen to us and take care of us.

The team of the Social-Liberal Party (SLP) along with the candidate running for the Chisinau mayor-general post, Corneliu Ciurea, propose you to accomplish the following goals together.

1. Chisinau — a cultural, tourism and entertainment centre

The residents of Chisinau want to preserve the historical patrimony from downtown and to turn it into a high activity tourism area. Chisinau is known in the region as a historical city, and it has also the fame of a green city.

The SLP team pledges to protect the historical urban landscape by renovating valuable buildings and ensembles. We will rebuild streets in the old city and historical area of Chisinau. We will hold a contest to build an administrative centre outside of the historical centre. We will actively participate in programmes on regeneration of old European cities, promoting ample tourism projects in order to accomplish all these goals.

The SLP team will focus on sanitation of the municipality. The household waste will be systematically evacuated without delays, accurately and attentively; technical personnel of the Autosalubritate Agency will be equipped with special uniforms and trained to respect the decency norms; places where waste containers will be unloaded will be cleaned up and containers will be put back in the initial position after unloading of waste. It will consider the possibility to grant the sanitation services to private companies; streets will be cleaned up on night only, so that to be dry on morning and not to splash water and dirty cars. Greening the city will be harmonious and trees inside residential districts, including poplar trees will be cut only with the consent of associations of lodgers;

2. Chisinau — a city of comfortable and cheap dwellings

The Chisinau municipality is a place where the majority of people live in old houses or pay exaggerated rent. We pledge to launch a national programme on renovation of dwelling blocks with participation of central, municipal authorities and associations of owners. We will lay the focus on thermal restoration of blocks in order to reduce the heating losses on winter.

We will launch the Municipal Programme Lodging for Poor People, aimed to encourage owners to move from old apartments and improve their living standards. The freed old apartments will be sold for an initial quota of 20–30 percent of the price of apartment and the other 70–80 percent will be paid within 15 years. People with small earnings, particularly youths will be encouraged to acquire these apartments by granting them credits under preferential conditions.

We will pay a special attention to rationalise the cost of communal services. SLP councillors will permanently seek to rationalise the heating deliveries and to strictly measure the heating losses from supplier to consumer and not to compensate these losses from consumers’ pockets or massive crossed subsidies; it will also focus on permanent hot water deliveries, optimisation of tariffs of this service, faultless functioning and modernisation of lifts in multi-storied blocks;

In residential blocks. Stairs and stair heads of residential blocks will be illuminated and lifts and related services will perfectly work; a constant and safe pressure in heating, water, gas pipes and pressure monitoring and record systems will be supervised; also, a standard tension will be ensured in electricity network and population will be permanently informed about ways to verify oscillations of tension in network.

3. Chisinau — a place for a fast and comfortable traffic

Relieving the centre off transit, and building streets and thouroughfares with continued traffic has to become a chief objective in the public transportation business in Chisinau. For this purpose, the SLP team wants to build beltways to link the districts of the city and to bypass the centre. Such a ring street network will ease the traffic and will relieve the traffic in very busy streets in downtown.

SLP will seek and propose alternative solutions to improve the situation in public passenger transportation sector, inclusively the modification of the minibus concept, replacement of old vehicles with new and larger motor vehicles of a uniform colour. It will seriously and insistently consider possibilities to implement modern urban transport (tramways, one-rail suspended cabines). It will seek uniforms for motorists of public transport.

Also, additional measures will be taken to improve the functioning of transportation inflows — relieving pavements off vehicles, building storied and/or underground parking sites, two-storey crossroads, limiting the access of some categories of transport to busy areas, awarding individual compensations for public transport to people in need and persons with small earnings, and improving the management of municipal electric and motor transport operators.

4. Chisinau — a city administrated with responsibility and love for people

All problems of Chisinau are linked to a faulty functioning of apparatus of the municipality and a hyperbureaucracy with deep and ramified roots. Corruption and non-professionalism of administration affect the confidence of tax-payers toward City Hall. The administrative chaos scares investors and deprives us of ample projects. The Chisinau City Hall keeps an extremely poor record of fields and dwellings and so 10 percent of the historical patrimony was destroyed; it inefficiently administrates municipal enterprises and stock societies that suffer very big losses, uninspiredly plans the budget collections raising hidden arrears, and it is incapable to attract investments and unreimbursable funds from abroad.

A professional management based on “priority-efficiency” principle and aspects of indirect competition in sectors providing public goods is capable to combat all these failures. The advanced financing tool will be used to attract funds to implement projects. Also, public-private partnerships and cooperation with civil society organisations are compulsory. All major projects launched by City Hall must be discussed in society and be elaborated on basis of impact studies. New persons must rule the City Hall who will be capable to ensure transparency of decision-making and executives acts, including by periodically advertising the process of formation and execution of the Chisinau bydget and administration of municipal land fund for housing or industrial buildings.

In particular, the implementation of the new General City Development Plan will be tackled carefully and reasonably, given the lack of a consensus among competent specialists. The SLP team will seek to combine appropriately the goals of keeping the historical architectural style with purposes to meet the needs of cultural-productive buildings. It will tackle the colouring of fronts of buildings in a creative manner based on tradition and advanced contemporary experience, tending to harmony and beauty.

The management of the municipality will follow a key goal — to develop the human factor, the main resource of a modern economy. Education, culture and healthy lifestyle are three fundamental guid marks of social-liberals. In particular, it will focus on: more public mini-stadiums / sport arenas — Use of all opportunities and free areas to build new public stadiums or to improve the condition of existing public sport arenas: personnel, turfs, sport accessories and equipment. More small squares — we will tend to build more small squares or develop the existing ones, prohibiting the walking of dogs and installation of grills; more public modern and clean playgrounds — modern, comfortable, functional playgrounds made of ecological materials, appointing persons in charge with their integrity and working, who will be paid from municipal budget; transfer of noxious industrial productions to extravilan land or making them to strictly respect the ecological standards.

5. Suburbs — an indispensable part of a modern capital

Suburbs of the capital must join the vital urban cycle and landshaft of the capital. Social-liberal councillors will seek the modernisation of suburbs for their harmonious urbanising, including by supplying all suburbs with quality drinkable water, completing the gasification of all suburbs, illuminating streets in suburbs, repairing roads, finishing sewerage netowkrs, evacuating waste, modernising schools and kindergartens.