The State Duma has decided on a risky tourism experiment: seaside holidays will not be the same

The State Duma on Thursday began experimenting with guest houses. A bill designed to legalize private cottages in Crimea, Sevastopol and the Krasnodar Territory passed its first reading. Since mandatory star ratings were introduced for domestic accommodation facilities, such houses have become illegal. The Duma members want to take them out of the gray zone, count them and put them on the register. True, not all parliamentarians accepted the initiative with enthusiasm.

The bill “On conducting an experiment in the provision of hotel services in guest houses” involves conducting an experiment (as the name implies) on the legalization of guest houses.

The authors – United Russia members Natalya Kostenko, Tatyana Lobach, Nikolai Valuev, Sergei Krivonosov and Ivan Demchenko propose for now to make three regions a zone for the experiment – Crimea, Sevastopol and Krasnodar Territory.

It’s clear why they are: the southern regions, the largest flow of tourists, a traditionally developed private guest sector.

The deputies recalled that in 2018, the law introduced a ban on the provision of hotel services without a certificate of assignment to the hotel of a certain category. Those who did not receive a “star” found themselves outside the legal framework. Absolutely all private owners have fallen into a gray zone.

“At the same time, on the territory of the constituent entities of the Russian Federation – participants in the proposed experiment, there are a large number of such individual residential buildings. The lack of regulation of the activities of such accommodation facilities negatively affects the level of protection of consumer rights, their safety, creates legal uncertainty regarding the requirements imposed on the owners of such accommodation facilities, and leads to budget losses,” the authors indicate in the explanatory note.

The bill proposes to introduce the concept of a guest house, criteria for recognizing an individual residential building as a guest house, as well as a mechanism for including guest houses in a single list of classified hotels, ski slopes and beaches.

An individual residential building or part of it is proposed to be considered a guest house. The area of ​​the building should be no more than 1000 square meters, and it should have no more than 15 rooms. In addition, it must be built on a site for individual housing construction, registered in the cadastral register and correspond to the “no stars” category.

Deputies want to register all guest houses that fit this framework in a special register. Advertising of houses that are not on the register will be prohibited.

It is proposed to set the date of its entry into force as April 1, 2024.

The initiative caused a flurry of criticism among Duma members. The Duma members dubbed the bill a pig in a poke: it does not provide answers to pressing everyday questions, but obliges all owners of individual housing construction to enter the register.

One of the blind spots is where will guests of guest houses park their cars if, by law, they can have 15 rooms?

Deputy Oksana Dmitrieva suggested that they would park either with their neighbors or on the road.

The issue with inspections of guest houses is also unclear to deputies. The authors of the bill assure that none of the regulatory authorities will rush to the owners of such cottages.

Deputy Sergei Leonov (LDPR) is confident that the matter will not be limited to the legalization of existing guest houses. Moreover, the authors of the amendments themselves admitted that the experiment is planned to be expanded to other regions of the country – if it is considered successful. True, the criteria for success are still vague. They will be registered in a separate document by the Ministry of Energy.

But now there is a risk that the new law will allow the construction of mini-hotels of 15 rooms of 1000 square meters each on the lands of individual housing construction, without being embarrassed by neighbors and without asking their opinion.

A colleague from United Russia, when speaking, said that we need new locations to support business. What business? These are self-employed. And then I realized: it’s just permission to build a hotel on private housing construction land, that’s all! – said Sergei Leonov.

In his opinion, the bill will simply untie the hands of people who have money, but do not want to go through numerous stages of approving a hotel project, receive “stars” and then suffer from inspections by Rospotrebnadzor and firefighters.

That’s what this bill is for! “He’s not needed for anything else,” Leonov snapped.

The deputy also had a question about the requirements that guest houses will have to meet. Will they be matched by houses that already stand on Crimean or Krasnodar soil and have been accepting guests for years, if not decades, providing their owners with a piece of bread? It’s not a fact at all, the parliamentarian believes.

They will either be demolished or closed, and again people will suffer,” Leonov predicted and immediately issued an even more gloomy forecast: as soon as a guest writes a complaint about the guest house, all sorts of auditors will come running.

Moreover, the issue of payment for housing and communal services for owners of guest houses remains a blank spot in the bill. Co-author of the amendments, deputy Natalya Kostenko, emphasized that in her opinion, such citizens should pay as citizens. But this is just her opinion for now. What will happen in reality is a big question. Colleagues in the chamber believe that resource-supplying corporations themselves can begin to comb the register of guest houses. As soon as they find it, they will certainly charge you for electricity, gas and heat according to the commercial meter.

Despite sharp criticism, the bill passed its first reading, albeit with difficulty. Of the 378 deputies who took part in the vote, 288 pressed the “for” button. 70 were against, another 20 abstained.