“Hello, this is a joint Delfi and Proptech Lithuania association founded Cityshifthub show Future Cities and today we have a fantastic guest – Arvydas Avulis, chairman of the board of Hanner,” greeted the show host E. Kuročkina in the episode released on August 19.
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She is not only the show host but also a member of the Vilnius City Council, head of the Freedom faction, and A. Avulis is a well-known real estate developer, responsible for the national stadium project, which is overseen by the city authorities.
What was discussed?
The show included conversations about the relationship between business and municipality, politicians. The politician who became the show host, among other things, asked A. Avulis what should be done for businesses to invest more in the capital’s public infrastructure: “What do we need to do so that business, I don’t know – business, or maybe the city itself, or business together with the city would invest more in entertainment and leisure infrastructure created within more compact, perhaps residential districts of the city, what then prevents all this from happening?”
A. Avulis replied: “The first thing – very good cooperation and communication with politicians is needed here, because city politicians make decisions, sometimes tax, sometimes can tax less, sometimes maybe it shouldn’t be done at all, because now we have such strange laws in Lithuania, when we say that the housing issue is very relevant – people want to live in better housing, but it doesn’t exist, or rather – it exists but is very expensive. But it can be made affordable and here very good communication, cooperation, and understanding are needed. We can provide solutions on how to solve the housing problem, how to make it better quality and in that place we often see that we don’t really listen to each other.”
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After A. Avulis explained that he had to pay 2 million euros for permission to create a public space on the site of the former “Žalgiris” stadium and now bears the maintenance costs of this space himself, not the city, E. Kuročkina also asked: “What else prevents creating such ambitious projects faster, more interestingly, more quickly?”
A. Avulis answered that bureaucracy is the obstacle: “One thing, the first and most important, is bureaucracy, an unreal amount of people wanting just to complicate and burden those processes and the conditions, requirements pile up one on top of another and then, in fact, it takes courage and strength – to devote a lot of your time to achieve some goal.”
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