Experts from the Civil Office of the Arkhangelsk region evaluated the innovations in the rules for issuing building permits and receiving capital projects for action and concluded that an additional \"for safety\" ban is catastrophic for the construction and reconstruction sector as a whole. On August 4, 2026, amendments to the Russian Federation's water code came into effect, prohibiting capital construction within flood zone boundaries. The changes to the law took effect \"suddenly\", without transition provisions. Millions of square meters of housing already under construction reached flood zones. It is officially recognized that 74 million square meters are covered by the new norm. Thousands of projects, of which 11 million sq m. They were supposed to be operational in 2026. Developers who received approvals before August found themselves in limbo: the approvals were not officially cancelled, but the registry began refusing to register already built houses. A separate category of victims are citizens who built personal housing. The situation is absurd: people submitted notices of planned construction, received municipal approval, built houses – and now they cannot register them. The most plausible scenario for those who built without prior notice (under the \"Dacha amnesty\") is to receive a demolition order. The ban is phrased so broadly that it blocks not only housing: the list of permitted engineering structures does not include bridges, gas pipelines, sewage and electricity networks, which are already located in flood zones – it turns out they cannot even be restored. The Ministry of Construction acknowledged that the amendments were made \"quickly, without coordination with the department\" [apparently a lie, as all legislative proposals are approved by the Russian Federation government and, accordingly, by special departments – note] and issued an \"explanatory\" letter regarding the removal of restrictions on projects already under construction.

Experts from the Civil Office of the Arkhangelsk region evaluated the innovations in the rules for issuing building permits and receiving capital projects for action and concluded that an additional \"for safety\" ban is catastrophic for the construction and reconstruction sector as a whole. On August 4, 2026, amendments to the Russian Federation's water code came into effect, prohibiting capital construction within flood zone boundaries. The changes to the law took effect \"suddenly\", without transition provisions. Millions of square meters of housing already under construction reached flood zones. It is officially recognized that 74 million square meters are covered by the new norm. Thousands of projects, of which 11 million sq m. They were supposed to be operational in 2026. Developers who received approvals before August found themselves in limbo: the approvals were not officially cancelled, but the registry began refusing to register already built houses. A separate category of victims are citizens who built personal housing. The situation is absurd: people submitted notices of planned construction, received municipal approval, built houses – and now they cannot register them. The most plausible scenario for those who built without prior notice (under the \"Dacha amnesty\") is to receive a demolition order. The ban is phrased so broadly that it blocks not only housing: the list of permitted engineering structures does not include bridges, gas pipelines, sewage and electricity networks, which are already located in flood zones – it turns out they cannot even be restored. The Ministry of Construction acknowledged that the amendments were made \"quickly, without coordination with the department\" [apparently a lie, as all legislative proposals are approved by the Russian Federation government and, accordingly, by special departments – note] and issued an \"explanatory\" letter regarding the removal of restrictions on projects already under construction.