Environmental activists and urban planners in Yerevan are voicing their concerns over the rehiring of Narek Sargsyan as the capital's chief architect.

Yerevan Mayor Karen Karapetyan, elected to the position a few months ago, has stated that the no new construction in the city will be permitted at the expense of the capital's dwindling green spaces.

Can the mayor be taken at his word? Sargsyan, who formerly served as Yerevan Chief Architect, has been criticized for allowing a host of dubious construction and planning projects that many say have distorted the urban landscape of the Armenian capital, transforming it into a jumbled melange of architectural styles with no redeeming aesthetic sensibilities.

Mayor Karapetyan promises that he will put a stop to this construction free for all.

Developments on the ground, however, raise a host of doubts.

Take what is happening at 106/1 Nalbandyan Street in the heart of Yerevan.

A kindergarten at the site, where 100 children attended classes, has been torn down by a company called Avag Shin.

Local residents have protested the destruction of the school and the surrounding trees. They have sent letters to various government officials and staged demonstration.

In response, the Ministry of the Environment declared that no permission had been granted to cut down trees. Vardan Vardanyan, the Minister of Urban Development, has said that the company only had permission to demolish the kindergarten and that there is no documentation approving any new construction there.

Back in March, the Yerevan Municipality told residents in writing that construction paperwork hadn't even been drafted or approved.

Heritage Party MP Stepan Safaryan even submitted a notification to the General Prosecutor's Office regarding the illegal construction.

In May 2010, the government (the real estate was held by the RA Police) sold the kindergarten's real estate to Avag Shin for 886.2 million AMD.

Sedrak Baghdasaryan, who heads a civic group that defends citizens whose property has been expropriated by the government in the name of eminent domain, says that RA Police had no right to grant the company permission to build there and that only the Yerevan Municipality could do so.

Mr. Baghdasaryan says that in June of last year, then Mayor Gagik Beglaryan presented the government with a plan to have the site declared "eminent domain" and to register Avag Shin as the new owner.

But the Ministry of Finance raised objections, arguing that Avag Shin hadn't offered evidence that it owned substantial resources to properly meet its construction obligations.

One of the Avag Shin founders, Vard Gasparyan, then sent the Ministry a letter that seemed to partly dispel its concerns about the company's finances.

For the past six months, Baghdasaryan has been trying to get the courts to force the Yerevan Municipality to disclose that document. The case continues to drag on.

In September 2010, the government deemed the entire kindergarten site as "eminent domain" and transferred the title to Avag Shin.

This goes against a 2005 law which clearly states that pre-school buildings considered state or community property can only be sold off in "exceptional" cases.

Sedrak Baghdasaryan also points out that at the time Beglaryan proposed a much small area to be appropriated than what actually happened.

In fact, the "eminent domain" site has been increased to a point where only 1.5 meters separates from five story apartment buildings on four sides.

At the site, Avag Shin has already posted a schematic of what the new "multi-functional" building, replete with underground parking, will look like.

Area resident Rita Karapetyan says that if high-rise is built it will block out any air and sunlight to the surrounding buildings.

Her neighbour, Levon Choukaszyan, points to the two huge holes in the ground and notes there isn't any rock bed on which to build such a huge structure. He says that aside from a seismological issue, if an earthquake ever hit, residents living in the surrounding buildings would be caught in a death-trap since the entire four street entrances lead inside.

The protests of the residents prompted Prime Minister Tigran Sargsyan to set up an inter-departmental working group to review the matter on May 18.

But this too is just for show.

Just days later, representatives of Avag Shin knocked on the door of Ghoukas Choubaryan, a sculptor who lives at the site. They told him to remove the sculptures from his small garden. They told him the area was "eminent domain" and that it would be bulldozed.

What interests does Avag Shin actually represent? Who will benefit from the eminent domain zoning decisions?

Local residents say former Yerevan Mayor Beglaryan is the godfather of the entire deal.

Some of the former kindergarten kids now attend Beglaryan's kindergarten in Medaks.

Others point to Police Chief Alik Sargsyan as a major player in the real estate deal. After all it was the Police Department that sold the site to Avag Shin in the first place.