The paper analyzes the forms of and limitations to the politicization of the public debates around the contested urban territory in Ulyanka residential estate (St. Petersburg) initiated by local activists. The authors show how the activists gradually shift from informal, localized, tactical actions and rhetorics to more institutionalized and formalized efforts of urban space contestation. They also demonstrate that, although each form of the activists' civic participation has a certain politicization potential, and some of their actions and claims are of expressed political character, the representatives of the local community still prefer to classify such efforts as principally apolitical.