News - How the Areni community mayor turned the gas station owner into a perpetual target of fines.

The mayor of Areni municipality, Hushik Sahakyan, filed a court petition in September 2025 seeking to compel Arqam Karapetyan to demolish the self-constructed structures on the land with cadastral code 10-0080-0111-0021 and to restore the plot to its former appearance. The structures on the plot are a gasoline station and a liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) filling station, which the entrepreneur built in 2018 with the permission of Hushik Sahakyan. In March 12, 2018, the mayor adopted a decision to permit the individual entrepreneur Arqam Karapetyan to install a liquefied gas filling station on his own land. Therefore, the filling station was not initially entirely self-constructed, and by September 2023 it ceased to be a self-constructed structure. The entrepreneur’s self-constructed structures were legalized by himself, Areni’s mayor, Hushik Sahakyan. Six months after legalization, Areni’s mayor began administrative proceedings against Arqam Karapetyan and against his wife, the owner of a petrol outlet at the same filling station, Mariam Davtyan LLC. Sahakyan imposed large fines in all the decisions, arguing that the filling station was built without architectural documents and approvals from the competent authorities and thus is an illegal structure. In fact, the violator has been the Areni mayor himself, who allowed the construction of the liquefied petroleum gas filling station without documents and approvals. Subsequently, each year he issued a license for the sale of liquid fuel to the entrepreneur. The longtime Areni leader could not have failed to know that building a filling station requires the consent of multiple authorities. The project documents for building a filling station must undergo state expert examination. He knew at least that on land owned by the municipality and which the entrepreneur only subleased, he did not have the right to grant permission for construction without changing the land’s designation. Sahakyan has served as mayor since 1996. In those years he was a member of the Republican Party of Armenia (RPA) and until 2005 was elected head of the Rind community three times in a row. After a two-year break, in 2007 he again stood for mayor, and was reelected in 2010 and 2014. On November 5, 2017, he was elected as the head of the enlarged Areni community. In all these elections he was a member of the RPA and was nominated by the party for the post of community head. In the 2022 local elections, he headed Areni’s list for the Civil Contract party. The land in question was leased by Areni Municipality to my uncle in 2003. In 2016 I approached Hushik Sahakyan, saying I wanted to build a gas station. I told him to tell me how to begin construction. They replied that nothing was needed, I should go ahead and install it. Perhaps I did not know what I was doing, especially since I was just starting, and they should have told me what was required. I built it, and later the government decided that self-constructed structures could be legalized; I asked the authorities to gather the necessary documents. From July 2020, based on Arqam Karapetyan’s application, the Areni municipality initiated the process of legalizing the self-constructed structure. As is customary in such cases, an administrative case was opened against Arqam Karapetyan for unlawfully constructing a building on land to which he holds the right of use without the appropriate architectural documents (construction permit). A fine of 200,000 drams was imposed. The decision noted that Arqam Karapetyan, during the administrative hearing, expressed willingness to pay the fine and legalize the structure. On August 20, 2020, upon the mayor’s proposal, the Areni council approved changing the land’s designated purpose for Arqam Karapetyan’s 1,000 square meter subleased land plot from agricultural use to public construction uses. The same resolution also proposed drafting a land-use plan and presenting it to the interdepartmental commission for discussion. After receiving the interdepartmental commission’s positive conclusion in May 2022 for the development of municipal planning documents, Sahakyan changed the land’s designation to public construction use. The self-constructed structures totaling 57.35 square meters on the plot — including an underground fuel tank of 19.3 m2, an LPG pumping station of 3.97 m2, canopy-1 of 3.95 m2, the operator’s room of 8.48 m2, canopy-2 of 21.65 m2 — were recognized as legal and deemed to be the property of the Areni municipality. At the same time, the mayor settled the rental agreements between Areni Municipality and Vasak Karapetyan from 2003 and the sublease agreement between Vasak Karapetyan and Arqam Karapetyan from 2018. In August 2022, the council decided to offer Arqam Karapetyan the right of first refusal to purchase the legalized structures and the 1,000 m2 land plot by direct sale. The 57.35 m2 of buildings were valued at 625,000 drams, and the 1,000 m2 land plot designated for residential use at 3,383,000 drams. After the sale and purchase with Areni Municipality, on September 7, 2023 the Cadastre registered Arqam Karapetyan’s ownership. Arqam and his wife challenge the mayor’s administrative penalties in court, and those cases are being split. Meanwhile, Sahakyan continues to initiate proceedings and to impose fines of 100,000 drams, 200,000 drams, 300,000 drams, up to 2,000,000 drams. Arqam was also fined for placing an advertising sign for the filling station on his own land. He did not have a permit for this, but the mayor did not respond to his requests. After construction, an administrative case was opened and the sign was dismantled. The Construction, Technical and Fire Safety (CTFS) Inspectorate joined the mayor in imposing penalties. Arqam is not unhappy about CTFS inspections of his filling station; he says they help him, and that he uses their directives to correct deficiencies in the station’s operation. He noted that until 2024 the inspectorate conducted checks, but no major violations were recorded. After clashing with the mayor, the CTFS Inspectorate now inspects his filling station twice a year, and because the violations have not been fully corrected, fines are imposed again. The mayor of Areni does not permit the violations to be eliminated. On July 9, 2025 the CTFS Inspectorate conducted a fire-technical assessment of the filling station regarding compliance with the November 18, 2024 order; there were five requirements, four of which were fulfilled; the first requirement stated that external firefighting access must be provided by at least two fire hydrants located no closer than 40 meters from the tanks or by a fire reservoir of at least 100 m3, which could not be fulfilled. The Ministry of Internal Affairs Fire Service has written to Arqam Karapetyan that the nearest fire hydrant to the gas station is adjacent to House 9 on Street 20 in Areni village. He has appealed to the mayor to obtain permission to install hydrants. He shows dozens of postal notifications of his applications, to which Hushik Sahakyan did not respond. In one response, he was told that the gas filling station operated by him had been built without the appropriate construction documents and approvals and is an illegal structure subject to demolition under Civil Code Article 188. In January 2025 Arqam Karapetyan applied to the head of the CTFS Inspectorate, Garegin Khachatryan, stating that he had fulfilled four of the order’s requirements and requested a certificate confirming that the violations had been remedied. The CTFS Inspectorate refused, stating that one of the requirements had not been fulfilled, and again fined him 300,000 drams for not having fire hydrants. “Brother, I don’t have a fire hydrant because the mayor won’t grant permission,” says Arqam. In August 2024 Mariam Davtyan LLC was fined 300,000 drams again for operating a self-constructed retail point without the appropriate permissions to sell liquid fuels and liquefied petroleum or hydrocarbon gases. Mariam Davtyan has appealed to the Administrative Court against Areni Municipality. In April of this year the court found the Areni mayor’s decision on imposing administrative penalties invalid. At the same time, it ordered Areni to reimburse Mariam Davtyan 51,100 drams in court costs. The parties have numerous court cases, mostly in the Administrative Court. Given the current trajectory, the number of cases may continue to grow, because the mayor remains determined to use the court to pursue his own will.