Creating starosta districts and municipal enterprises was the primary goal of the team of the newly created municipality of Turbiv at the end of 2020. However, time has shifted their priorities, and today at the forefront are filling the budget and building cooperation with the public. This mostly agrarian municipality from the Vinnytsia Oblast has recently approved a modern Charter with the support of U-LEAD and is looking for resources for development.
Charter of Municipality to improve public communications
Although four years, three of which coincided with the war, are not nearly enough for significant change, it is possible. Among the secrets of Turbiv’s success are a young team, ambitious goals, willingness to learn, engage the public and implement the principles of transparency.
“It all comes down to the team. Firstly, our team is made up of proactive, mostly young professionals supported by the expertise of older specialists. Secondly, thanks to programmes such as U-LEAD we have resources to learn and someone to consult with. Thirdly, there is light at the end of the tunnel, and we need to move forward. If we want to move closer to the EU, then everything must be transparent, accessible and inclusive,” said Ihor Sots, head of the village of Turbiv.
Local self-government’s transparency and accessibility, says the head of Turbiv, are the felt needs today. This is what residents expect from a united municipality, in addition to communication with local authorities. So when they had a chance to participate in the U-LEAD support programme “Development of the Charter of Municipality”, the team of the Turbiv Village Council, with expert support, prepared a Draft Charter of Municipality. The document, which in a sense rebooted the principles of communications between local self-government and the public, was approved in late January 2025.
Moreover, with the support of experts, local regulations on local initiatives, electronic petitions and public hearings were developed to elaborate on the Laws and the Charter. All of these tools are not entirely unheard of Turbiv, says Serhii Iskra, deputy head of the village. For instance, electronic petitions on the municipality’s website have existed since 2021.
“These tools will hopefully engage the municipality residents to the greatest extent possible in addressing vital issues and simplify these processes. The peculiarity of small municipalities such as ours is that people here are closer to the municipality’s senior officials. They are used to coming to the village head, chatting, sharing their problems, like in the old days. I believe this to be the reason why we don’t have that many petitions registered on the website,” says Mr Iskra.
Local initiatives were also used by residents of Turbiv in an informal version before.
“They [local initiatives] were more informal and even quite interesting here. And we, as local authorities, listened to them. There must be an understanding that both we and the local public are learning to make appropriate decisions, to be involved in those decision-making processes that many lacked access to. We are open and willing to communicate with anyone. For us as local self-government officials, this is also an additional source of information and good ideas that can be generated by the residents of the municipality, and we can try to implement them,” said Serhii Iskra, deputy head of the village.
Shifting priorities and finding resources for development
Implementing ideas and developing the municipality requires resources. And even in wartime, the municipality has faced new challenges. Priorities shifted towards financing expenses for security, defence and social protection. Still, the Turbiv Village Council continues to search for resources for development, studying and receiving support from U-LEAD experts in a wide variety of areas.
Among the successful cases is bringing real estate under municipal ownership through participation in the U-LEAD pilot project “Management of Abandoned Property” in 2023–2024. This is the result of nearly a year of work and training with the support of U-LEAD experts. The Turbiv municipality brought a residential building with a land plot under municipal ownership. According to Olha Kreshchenetska, Head of the Executive Committee of the Turbiv Village Council, their further fate is currently being decided. One of the proposals is to provide them to IDPs who won a grant for the development of small agribusiness in the municipality.
The official affirmed that the practice of accepting such objects into municipal ownership would continue in the future, as for local self-government, this is an internal resource that can be used effectively. This further contributes to a deeper understanding of the situation in the municipality.
“This case is an enlightening experience that helped us develop a step-by-step procedure. Therefore, if we identify another seemingly abandoned property in the municipality, we will work in this direction. However, when searching for this type of property, many were discarded. Very often the property turns out to be already registered or there is an owner who failed to formalise the inheritance. There are also those who submitted documents to the notary but failed to complete the inheritance acceptance process,” said Olha Kreshchenetska.
Another example of a successful search for internal resources is the optimisation of the system of local taxes and fees with the advisory support of the Regional Office of U-LEAD with Europe in the Vinnytsia Oblast. Since Turbiv is an agrarian municipality and most of its residents earn income from agricultural production, its local self-government received a “dubious inheritance” of numerous land plots under permanent use certificates. The owners of these documents paid significantly less in taxes than those who rent land. The adoption of a new Resolution — “On the Establishment of Local Taxes and Fees for 2025” — solved this problem.
“We wanted to show that everyone should be equal, everyone should pay taxes. We adjusted tax rates, equalising them as much as possible. I believe that everyone should operate on equal terms. Accordingly, the fee is charged per hectare. The larger the area, the higher the fee, but the interest rate is the same for everyone. That’s why no one complains about why someone has one rate and they have another,” said Serhii Iskra, deputy head of the village for the council’s executive bodies.
These changes will enable the municipality to attract more funds to the local budget and establish a reserve fund to increase certain types of income. This will contribute to strengthening the municipality’s capabilities to do more for its residents. And, as the village head Ihor Sots says, building a municipality where people want to live, work and relax rather than leave in search of something better.
