Tzaghkadzor, Armenia’s leading tourist and sports resort town, is undergoing a boom of high-rise buildings that threaten its attractivness to domestic and foreign vacationeers alike.

Such construction violates a 2006 government master plan for the town thirty-six miles northeast of Yerevan.

The plan sets a two-story limit for residential buildings and a four-story limit for public use edifices.

The government’s Urban Planning Committee, staring in 2022, has given the go-ahead to developers to erect apartment buildings ranging from four to ten stories high.  

Over the past four years, the Tzaghkadzor mayor il has given permission to fourteen companies to build multifunctional residential complexes in the city from 2020 to now. (Kechi Rest House", Tzaghkadzor Sports Complex, Pallada Tzaghkadzor, Capital Build, 4A Capital, Saturnavan, Modern Structure, Tzaghkadzor Bakery, Legal, Han Group, Intra, INTRA, EDIFYS Ltd., Alvina Hotel Complex, and individual entrepreneur Arsen Sargsyan.

The number of developers building apartment buildings will increase in the future as new companies and individuals buy land from the community, and those who have, expand their properties.

After enlarging their properties, owners then get changes to zoning laws that allow them to build multi-functional residential complexes.

These government zoning changes have significantly decreased specially protected tracts of land intended for public use. The local municipal council is currently changing the status of forested lands to “recreational use” lands.

The purpose of the change is not given, but most likely, these lands will be zoned   for residential development.

According to the 2006 master plan, sanatoriums, holiday homes, hotels, and entertainment venues were planned for Tzaghkadzor. This followed a 2005 government initiative to turn the area into a tourism and sports center featuring international standards.

In 2006, the Swiss Tiger Dev Switzerland company drafted a development plan for the town to build winter sports facilities.

Over the past few years, some sixty holiday homes and hotels, and more than fifty guest houses were reconstructed and built in the town.  Service sector infrastructure has also been modernized.

The government established the maximum town population, according to the master plan, at 3,000. The official 2016 population is 1,540.

The future of Tzaghkadzor is uncertain. The 2006 master plan remains unchanged, despite ongoing development violations.

Photos: Saro Baghdasaryan (archive)

See: $45 Million Tzaghkadzor Project: Government Patronage at Play?