Today, there are almost 200 DBNs in Ukraine, plus Soviet SNiPs and new DSTUs.
The government has finally admitted that they often make life difficult for investors and developers because they are disconnected from reality.
Recently, the Minister of the Ministry of Regional Development stated that the State Construction Standards are hindering the increase in investments in the industry, and by the end of the year it is planned to revise about 20 construction standards, and by the end of 2024, all 100% will be updated.
The course of the Ministry of Regional Development to improve the quality of life of people and bring our standards in line with European standards is correct, but the methods of achieving it are not always.
Instead of regulating everything everywhere, it is necessary to leave two main DBNs – fire and constructive, which do not allow a person to be killed and maimed, and they cannot be categorically violated – all the others should be transferred to the status of recommendations.
But instead, officials are starting to create new DBNs – and they are often rewritten by people from old design institutes who are disconnected from reality. As a result, instead of Soviet standards, we get half-Soviet ones: a couple of points are good, all the others make life more difficult.
Today, there are almost 200 DBNs in Ukraine, plus Soviet SNiP (Building Norms and Rules) and the new Ukrainian DSTU (State Standard of Ukraine). But a professional developer already knows what the height of a shopping mall should be, the optimal width of a kitchen, or how many toilets to place in a cinema. So why complicate things so much?
I will give a few vivid examples of already made “improvements”.
Inclusivity. The wonderful desire to provide people with disabilities with the most complete and world-standard access “to the world” in practice turned out to be an additional burden on the developer. Now the developer needs to spend + 15-20% so that his project complies with this DBN. Despite the fact that inclusivity can be achieved with simpler actions, the DBN has included very strict norms, violations of which will be punished, although they are economically and technologically ineffective.
Cinemas. The developers have seriously decided to update the relevant DBN and add to it … “cinema projection with modern digital projects”. I would like to ask: what time do you live in? In the “other” world, they even try not to make projection, because a laser projector can very easily and simply stand under the ceiling or on the other side of the wall, and a robotic control system automatically distributes films even without human participation.
Internet in hotels. The Ministry of Regional Development has pleased everyone with the news that from now on the Internet in hotels will be more accessible. Why? Because they will force all developers to have two wired computer ports in the hotel. So I have two questions.
The first, who will use it, given that laptops now have almost no such ports, and to use this “service” you need to buy an adapter worth about a hundred dollars — I’m not talking about tablets and phones. And the second: do they know how much it costs to lay all the necessary communications for this and then operate them? It’s hundreds of thousands of dollars, if you do it wisely.
The program to change DBNs is great, but most often it is aimed at eating up state money to create a product that is mostly undemanded by the market. Therefore, I really want the minister’s declared intention to cancel unnecessary DBNs to finally be implemented.
Andriy Ryzhikov, CEO and Managing Partner of DC Evolution
