Mayor starts plan to clear families out of Old Tbilisi

October 2, 2009 by georgiamedia

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The Mayor of Tbilisi, Gigi Ugulava  together with President Mikheil Saakashvili yesterday (1 October) launched his plan to pay families to leave historic Old Tbilisi to allow the demolition of large parts of the historic city and the building of modern, high-rise buildings.

The Georgian Messenger reports that residents are to be paid $700 per square metre to quit to allow the city to clear 33,000 square metres of ground space.

The historic old city is a major tourist attraction (see photograph, left) and though living conditions are often poor there must be a danger that simply knocking down buildings and replacing them with modern appartment blocks must threaten Tbilisi's charm.

Typically, Mikheil Saakashvili was having none of that.

"We are creating new face of Tbilisi. All this implies not only the high buildings, but hundreds of employed people as well. This will assist to attract ten times more tourists to here, " he said.

There has been speculation that the economic downturn would make the project unaffordable, but the Tbilisi construction sector - already set to benefit with 52 million GEL profit thanks to the first round of the scheme - which is being financed for from public funds - have said they are looking forward to its expansion.

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