City Hall offers free space to restaurants and clubs temporarily
By Natalia Kochiashvili
Thursday, July 16
The meeting of the capital's government was held on 15th of July. Several new decisions and initiatives were voiced at the meeting. As announced, from 10th of September, a zonal-hour parking system will be launched on Pekini Avenue and its surrounding streets in Tbilisi.
According to Tbilisi Mayor Kakha Kaladze, parking will be free pre-registered for the residents of this district, persons with disabilities and owners of electric vehicles. For the rest, the parking fee will be GEL1 per hour. He recalled the pilot projects of Kote Abkhazi Street and the area around Orbeliani Street, where the zonal-hour parking was introduced, adding that it was very successful and showed potential for carrying out next stages.
Kaladze also announced that due to the expected change in the parking rules, 10 information booths will be set up on Pekini Avenue from August 10 where citizens will be able to receive information in detail.
“One important challenge is to upgrade public transport and make it so that citizens prefer public transport over private cars,” said Mayor. He noted that concrete steps have already been taken including bringing new buses and reconstructing metro carriages and subway stations.
The mayor of Tbilisi offered the owners of restaurants and clubs, without any tax, to transfer and temporarily use areas owned by the municipality.
Municipality expressed readiness to provide these businesses a temporary benefit, without any tax, as long as these problems exist, in order to give them a chance to use and grow their businesses.
Open-air restaurants and cafes have been operating in Georgia since June 1. Closed spaces were also opened from June 8.
In addition, Kaladze said at the meeting of the government of the capital that the project ‘Under the Sky of Tbilisi’ will be implemented this year as well.
Culture institutions and projects run in Georgia's capital will start benefiting from an increased financial support from the Tbilisi City Hall.
Mayor explained that the city hall would begin allocating a larger budget to events, programmes and organisations of the culture scene, in a bid to help them overcome challenges of the COVID-19 crisis. Thus the culture budget will be increased in order for the city hall to be able to support different representatives of the field and ‘enable them to overcome the pandemic period without major pressure.’ Lending land and building space - currently owned by the city hall municipality - to entertainment venues, and starting a series of open-air music performances were two of the examples of the city-wide support for culture Kaladze mentioned in his comments.
The Prime Minister of Georgia Giorgi Gakharia and the Kaladze opened a Veterans Recreation and Culture Park (Kikvidze Garden) after rehabilitation. Mayor addressed the citizens gathered on the spot: “We have a lack of parks, but I have promised the people of Tbilisi that our city will be the greenest city in Europe, the most orderly, the most updated, the safest, the most well-equipped. In this, of course, your support is always important,” Kaladze said.
In the area of 72,100 square meters, a total of 12,124 trees were planted. GEL4,500,000 was allocated from the budget of the capital for the works.
The construction of a multifunctional center on the territory of Didi Dighomi in Tbilisi is starting. 9 000 m2 will be arranged in the area and will serve more than 10,000 beneficiaries after full load. Didi Dighomi Center includes a sports equipment store, a multifunctional library, a conference hall, an art school, bowling and board games, as well as underground parking. Construction of a similar sports complex in Varketili has already started.
The sports complex construction program aims to increase access to services, promote a healthy lifestyle and involve young people in sports life. Construction of the facility will be completed in 2021.
