Mayor of Riga: Riga residents can ask council experts to inspect their property and give advice on creating a shelter

Lelde Weinberga, TV24

During the big cleanup, the Riga City Council called on the city’s residents to clean the basements of their houses in order to create a safe shelter. Riga Mayor Vilnis Ķirsis (Jaunā Vienotība) in the TV24 program “Ziņu TOP. “Rīga speaks” informs how the application of municipal buildings to shelters is going and what Riga residents can do to clean up their private property and arrange the shelter premises correctly.

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According to the chairman of the Riga City Council, the work on arranging the basements takes place in two parts. One part is the buildings under the control of the municipality – schools, social care centers, etc. – and the other is the private property of the residents. V. ķirsis admits that there is a lot of work to put the houses in the care of the municipality in order: “In March, the State Fire and Rescue Service (VUGD) developed guidelines for us – what principles should be used to check whether these places are suitable for shelter, whether they are safe, etc. Then we go through these guidelines and call VUGD to check. If it matches, then we stick stickers that you can take shelter in this place.”

With regard to the properties of Riga residents, the situation is more complicated, because the municipality currently does not have the right to invest money in private property, pay for waste removal or place reserves. “Inhabitants who are interested in this are invited to contact the Civil Defense Department of the Riga City Council and we can send a specialist who will advise and tell what needs to be done [patvertnes izveidei],” informs the mayor of Riga.

In the basements of multi-apartment buildings, if there are residents’ belongings in them, it is unacceptable to weigh what should be in the future shelters and what should be removed. The manager must successively organize the removal of excess belongings, but as V. ķirsis points out, the involvement of residents is very necessary. “At the same time, we are currently talking with the government institutions that we could change the law, that the municipality can still pay for, for example, centralized waste removal, the purchase of metal doors and let the manager install them, etc.,” says the politician.

In total, the Riga municipality owns around 500 buildings, of which 90 have been inspected and 4 have been given shelter stickers from VUGD. One of the buildings that qualify for the shelter is the former RTU building at Kalķu Street 1, but as the mayor of Riga points out, there are still things that need to be improved in almost any place so that the building meets the conditions of the shelter. The municipality will stick to the creation of decentralized shelters, but if there is a need and logistical requirements, new shelters could also be created, but the emphasis will remain on adapting the existing basements.

Find out what’s happening in the capital and ask the representatives of the Riga City Council every Thursday at 16:30 in the TV24 program “Top News. Riga speaks”! Tomorrow, May 9, Laima Geikina (independent member of parliament), chairwoman of the Education, Culture and Sports Committee of the Riga City Council, will be a guest on the program. We will talk about education in the capital, the summer cultural program in Riga and other current events. During the live broadcast, ask your questions by calling the studio on the phone 67630301 or in writing in the WhatsApp app – 20019275.

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