MOSCOW, May 14. /TASS/. Moscow’s city authorities have pledged to be mindful of people’s concerns voiced at Sunday’s rally against a controversial bill on resettling residents of Soviet-era five-storey apartment blocks in the Russian capital.

"We will be attentive to all meaningful statements voiced at rallies on Moscow’s housing renovation program, including of those who are against this program. Muscovites’ opinions will be maximally reckoned with during the work on the bill," Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said on his VKontakte account.

Some 8,000 people gathered on Sunday on Moscow’s central Prospect Sakharova Avenue to protest against the bill.

The housing renovation program was announced in early 2017 when President Vladimir Putin issued an instruction to Sobyanin to demolish Soviet-era five-storey dwelling houses to build new apartment blocks instead. It is planned to clear some 25 million square meters of dwellings under the 10 to 15 year program.

A bill regulating the procedure of resettling residents of Soviet-era five-storey apartment houses was submitted to the State Duma lower house of Russia’s parliament. The document was passed in first reading on April 20. Duma speaker Vyacheslav Volodin suggested the second reading be postponed to July.