Private roads buyer-up gets business backlash

Photo: Toomas Tatar / Postimees

As businessman Konstantin Ivanišvili, having bought up a couple of small roads in Rae Commune, Harju County, got in the habit of asking too much money from people trying to get home, the latter joined forces and sued the man.

Pursuant to Harju County Court ruling this past Monday, Mr Ivanišvili must let people use his roads as they simply have no other option to get to their homes. «For use of the road, he was asking €50 a month, per household; and for entry and exit by a lorry, it was €100 for each trip. The court, however, ruled that we need to pay him 0.03 cents for each square metre i.e. our family must pay him about €33 a year,» said Tairi Tikko.

At the beginning, dwellers at Väike-Tammi Road, Rae Village, quietly suffered under the road-owner terror. Then came the day, when Ms Tikko could not get home with the kids as the businessman had blocked the road with his car; then, with the neighbours, she had recourse to the court. «We also asked the court for preliminary legal protection. Three times this was denied; on the fourth time we got it, finally. But at the first the judge said that, having managed without it for months, maybe the problem isn’t so bad as to require that,» said Ms Tikko.

«But then he physically blocked the path not letting even cars go by any longer, so I couldn’t get home and the neighbouring lady could not get to work. Then we registered the situation and, thanks to that probably, we obtained preliminary legal protection at last,» she recalled.

In reality, the businessman has already amassed quite a profit in the region. Namely, six plots of land went on sale in the area, all at once. For these, Mr Ivanišvili paid about €15,000 total.

An ASBL formed by Ms Tikko and her neighbours purchased the Väike-Tammi Road property, from him, for about €13,000.  Now, problems remain with the Tammi Road – the only way to get to the Väike-Tammi Road.

By now, Mr Ivanišvili’s initial bravado has subsided and he is speaking about the need to find a state-level solution for the private roads problem. Regarding the recent court ruling, he vows to contest it till the very Supreme Court. «If even there I fail to get my rights, I’ll scrape the asphalt from the road here and take it to Harku, for instance, for aggregate material,» promised Mr Ivanišvili.

According to Rae Commune deputy mayor Priit Põldmäe, things like that cannot happen anymore. «In the new detailed plans we will insert the clause that as soon as it enters into force, we will secure a notarial agreement with public use servitude established. This will we do with future plans; the existing ones cannot be reversed,» said Mr Põldmäe.

The situation, mentally wearisome for the parents, was perceived quite differently by the kids of the family. «The younger one, who is three, said every time we succeeded in getting past Mr Ivanišvili: yes, we made it. Like it was fun, a game. The 12-year-old, hearing about the court ruling, said it’ll be boring now that Mr Ivanišvili goes away,» laughed Ms Tikko, even though it wasn’t a laughing matter at all.

Partly because, as Ms Tikko put it, the businessman was a crafty manipulator, trying to put pressure on people and get them at odds with each other, telling differing things to different people.