Key findings
Hetq Report A false building permit was issued in Zeytun
The developer LLC is managed by the wife of Judge Artak Krkyasharyan
Neighbors’ consent for the building permit was obtained by the judge
The original agreement is missing from the development documents
The owner of the house next to the development area claims that they made a fake document
The main walls of the neighboring house were damaged during construction
Courts do not stop construction, state institutions do not respond to alarms
The judge’s wife bought and rebuilt a house on the same street.
Judge Artak Krkyasharyan of the Court of Cassation visited one of the houses on Zeytun 10th Street in August last year. The purpose of the visit is to obtain the consent of the landlords for the construction to be undertaken on the neighboring land.
Spouses Ruzanna and Garnik Mirzoyan bought a house on Zeytun 10th Street 30 years ago (new address: Vahe Vahyan Street). At that time, almost all the houses on the street had one or two floors. The plot of land has changed several owners in recent years. Last year, the judge of the anti-corruption chamber of the Court of Cassation, Artak Krkyasharyan, visited the Mirzoyans’ house. He assured the couple that he bought the free land for his son and he wants to build a two-story house for him. The spouses were asked to give written consent.
“Artak Krkyasharyan entered our house, we have not seen him. Came with someone from our street. My husband said: sign, I will build a two-story house here like my own. My husband signed not knowing what they really wanted to do. There were two handwritten lines under which he signed,” Ruzanna Mirzoyan told details of the meeting with Artak Krkyasharyan. The judge was warned that the established distance from their house should be kept from the construction, and they received an answer that the municipality is strict in such matters, they will not allow construction next to the wall.
Months after that meeting, the Mirzoyans started digging foundations with heavy equipment in the neighboring plot, during which the walls of their house cracked. “They dug 6-7 meters. We said: what are you doing, we did not give such permission. I said: bring the papers, let’s see what you put under them, they didn’t show anything. We saw the model recently,” said Ruzanna Mirzoyan. After building the underground floor, the couple notices that the builders are trying to build the wall of the newly constructed building (above the 0 mark) next to the wall of their house. They are trying to prevent such construction, but they are not succeeding.
Seeing that they are unable to influence the construction in any way, they turn to the Yerevan Municipality, Kanaker-Zeytun administrative district staff, the City Planning, Fire and Technical Safety Inspection Body under the Prime Minister, the Court, the Prosecutor’s Office, and the Investigative Committee. They do not receive a proper response from any state institution. We will look at the court case separately. In recent days, they also addressed a letter to the Deputy Mayor Tigran Avinyan.
Development plan, current situation
Grigori Hovsepyan, a citizen of Armenia and Russia, is the owner of the plot at 15 Zeytun 10th Street. He owns 100 percent of the share of “Apag-a Development” LLC, founded in 2022. The director of the company is Lusine Davtyan, the wife of Artak Krkyasharyan, judge of the anti-corruption court of the Court of Cassation. On May 17, 2022, Yerevan Mayor Hrachya Sargsyan gave Grigori Hovsepyan a design permit. The developer had to draw up a project for a building with 3 ground floors and 1 mansard floor, which could possibly have an underground floor. According to the design permit, a “multi-unit residential building” was to be designed. 7 months after that permission, in January 2023, Mayor Hrachya Sargsyan gives the developer a building permit. It is during the interim period of design and construction permits that Judge Krkyasharyan extracts the consent of the neighbors, which is probably falsified later. Obtaining consent is one of Krkyasharyan’s first tasks after being elected as a judge of the anti-corruption chamber of the Court of Cassation by the “Civil Agreement” faction of the National Assembly.
“Hetq” studied the documents of the construction project at 15 Zeytun 10th Street in the Yerevan Municipality, expecting to see the original paper of the neighbors’ agreements. Our expectations were not met. We found 2 documents printed with a printing device instead of the original in the document folder (1, 2). The Mirzoyan couple, neighbors of the area under construction, told us that the document presented by Judge Krkyasharyan and signed by them was handwritten and did not have an attached scheme, plan, from which it would be possible to understand the real extent of the construction. Meanwhile, a completely different document is placed in the package in the municipality.
Thus, we record that instead of the agreement document obtained with the participation of the judge, 2 papers prepared under suspicious circumstances were put as the basis of the building permit. Note that these documents have no legal force
accepting it, Hrachya Sargsyan gave a building permit.
As of June 13, the construction carried out by the company headed by the judge’s wife continues with great momentum. The concrete pillars of the underground and 1 above-ground floors have been built.
The administrative court did not stop the construction
The Mirzoyans, realizing that no state structure is going to see a problem in the construction related to Judge Krkyasharyan, turn to the court. They demand from the administrative court to cancel the construction permit given by Hrachya Sargsyan. At the same time, the court was asked to suspend the construction until the final court order. Judge Mher Petrosyan rejected the motion to suspend the construction related to the judge of the Supreme Court. The first court session with the request to cancel the construction permit was scheduled for September 9, when most of the construction will be almost done. Probably, the building will be put into operation when the court order is issued, because the construction with the building permit must be carried out until February 9, 2024.