The Ministry of Spatial Planning, Urbanism and State Property (MEPU) has legalized another large illegally constructed facility in the buffer zone of the UNESCO area in Boka - a new hotel by the company "Gugi Commerce" in the Opatovo settlement near Tivat.
The department headed by Minister Slaven Radunović did this despite the fact that the Tivat police filed a criminal complaint against a Budva businessman on February 19, 2024. Branislav Savić Gugi and his company "Gugi Commerce" for illegal construction in the cadastral municipality of Donja Lastva.
"On 17. 2. 2026, the Municipality of Tivat, Secretariat for Spatial Development and Planning, forwarded to the Administration for Legalization of Illegal Buildings a request for legalization of an illegal building owned by the company 'Gugi Commerce' doo Budva, built on KP 19/3, LN number 610, KO Donja Lastva, Municipality of Tivat, designated as a hotel, with a basic ground floor area of 743 m2, 1P+P+5k floors, total net area of 3.149 m2. This body conducted the procedure for determining the conditions for legalization in accordance with the provisions of the Law on Legalization of Illegal Buildings, and in the middle of the current month issued a decision on legalization," confirmed "Vijesti" in MEPU.
The Directorate for Legalization of Illegal Buildings is responsible for issuing decisions on the legalization of buildings with a net area of over 500 square meters, as well as buildings in protected zones and 4 or 5 star hotels. Local governments, or municipalities, are responsible for buildings with a net area of up to 500 square meters, which is why the Municipality delegated the request of "Gugi Commerce" to the MEPU.
The Police Directorate announced that it had filed a criminal complaint against Savić and his company for the illegal construction of a building in Opatovo, because during the inspection it was determined that on two plots "there was a deviation from the building permit held by the company 'Gugi Commerce', where an additional floor and a larger garage extension were built on one plot, while on the other plot, a building with five above-ground and two underground floors connected to the garage and one floor to the primary building was built without a building permit and the necessary documentation."
The police said that Savić and his company are suspected of "obtaining over 1.100 square meters of residential space in this way without obtaining a building permit and technical documentation, and in doing so caused damage to the Montenegrin budget of over 100.000 euros." It was also stated that the Urban Planning and Construction Inspection has banned further work.
The prosecutor's office, two years after the police filed a criminal complaint against him, has still not completed its investigation into the case.
The Basic State Prosecutor's Office (ODT) in Kotor, as the local authority, has not completed the investigation for more than a year since the report was submitted, so by decision of the Higher State Prosecutor's Office (VDT) in Podgorica, the case was delegated to the ODT in Bar.
"The Supreme Public Prosecutor's Office has delegated the case files of the Supreme Public Prosecutor's Office in Kotor to the Supreme Public Prosecutor's Office in Bar, along with another 249 cases, due to the overload of the Supreme Public Prosecutor's Office in Kotor," the Supreme Public Prosecutor's Office announced to "Vijesti" (News).
On March 27, the Bar State Prosecutor's Office confirmed to "Vijesti" that the State Prosecutor's Office had delegated this case to them.
"The Basic State Prosecutor's Office in Bar has opened a case with the business code Kt-I.br.22/25 against the company 'Gugi Commerc' Budva and the responsible person in that legal entity, Branislav Savić, for the illegal construction of a building in the Opatovo settlement in Tivat. The case is in the investigation phase," the Bar ODT said, without specifying when exactly the VDT transferred the case, which had previously been investigated by their colleagues from Kotor for more than a year, to their jurisdiction.
The State Prosecutor's Office did not respond to the fact that the two State Prosecutor's Offices that dealt with or are still dealing with this case, more than two years after the police filed a criminal complaint against Savić and his company, have not yet completed their investigation into the case, and that in the meantime the construction of the disputed building has continued and is currently nearing completion.
"Do these facts indicate that the Prosecutor's Office acted extremely inefficiently in this case and how do you comment on that?" is a question to which "Vijesti" also did not receive an answer from the Supreme Prosecutor's Office.
The Ministry of Public Works and Public Works confirmed that work on the illegal facility has continued in the meantime, contrary to the bans imposed.
"The Construction Inspection of the Directorate for Inspection Supervision, in the process of controlling the construction of the investor's facility "Gugi Commerce", issued a decision prohibiting the subject of supervision from further construction work, because the construction is not being carried out, or rather, was not carried out according to the revised main project, and ordered the elimination of the identified irregularities. The control inspection supervision carried out in March 2024 determined that the subject of supervision did not act on the aforementioned decision within the given deadline and did not eliminate the identified irregularities, after which, in accordance with the powers granted by law, a decision was issued ordering the subject of supervision "Gugi Commerce" doo Budva to demolish the floor above the second floor, part of the garage floor and part of the ground floor of the 4* hotel facility, which is located on cadastral plots no. 19/2 and 19/3 KO Donja Lastva, Tivat municipality," MEPU said.
They state that the Building Inspection, in the process of controlling the construction of a facility by the same investor at the location of cadastral plot 20 of KO Donja Lastva, issued a decision "prohibiting the subject of supervision from building 2 - a 4* hotel because the facility is being built without a construction application and documentation from Article 91 of the Law on Spatial Planning and Construction of Facilities".
"The construction ban measure was implemented by sealing the construction site by the construction inspection on March 15, 2024. The control inspection carried out in June 2025 determined that the construction work on the facility continued, after which, in accordance with the powers granted by law, a decision was issued ordering the subject of supervision "Gugi Commerce" to demolish facility 2 - a 4* hotel on cadastral plot 20 of the Donja Lastva zoning district, because it is being built despite the ban on the construction of the facility issued by this authority. In relation to the facility on cadastral plot no. 19/2, 19/3 and 20 of the Donja Lastva zoning district, Tivat municipality, the Police Directorate, Tivat Security Department, was notified of the irregularities found, the factual situation and the measures and actions taken by the construction inspection," the ministry said when asked what they had been doing in the meantime regarding Savić's illegal construction.
Although it has repeatedly violated the law and the inspection orders since February 2024, "Gugi Commerc" has in the meantime, referring to the Law on the Legalization of Illegal Facilities, which was passed last year on the initiative and according to the proposal formulated by MEPU, submitted a request for the legalization of the new hotel, and the Municipality forwarded it to MEPU for further action. The Legalization Administration accepted the request and legalized the facility for Savić.
The conceptual design for the new boutique hotel in Opatovo was prepared a few years ago by the company "Business Art" from Podgorica, led by architect Mladen Krekić, who later also prepared the main design of the facility. According to the design, a facility with a total area of 1.025 square meters, with a ground floor + 2 floors, was to be built on two cadastral plots with a total area of 718 square meters, for which the consent of the Chief State Architect was obtained and a construction application was submitted in October 2022.
However, according to the findings of the inspection and the police, Savić's company has since built almost three times more buildings here than allowed, so the site now has a 1-storey building with 1-storey building + 1-storey building + 5-storey building.
Branislav Gugi Savić, according to unofficial information, is close to Milan Knežević's Democratic People's Party, which is formally still in the coalition "For the Future of Montenegro" with Minister Slaven Radunović's New Serbian Democracy, while the DNP in Tivat is a member of the local ruling coalition led by the civic list "The People Wins" of Mayor Željko Komnenović.
Otherwise slow, everything was completed in a summary procedure
The Directorate for the Legalization of Illegal Buildings conducted the procedure according to the so-called abbreviated administrative procedure, so everything was completed in less than a month - from February 17 to March 16 of this year, when the Acting Director of the Directorate, Radmila Lainović, issued a decision approving the "legalization of part of an illegal building owned by the company Gugi Commerc Budva, with a net area of 2.274,78 square meters".
Amendments to the Law on the Protection of the Natural and Cultural-Historical Area of Kotor, which the Montenegrin Parliament adopted under an urgent procedure in order to prevent Kotor from being placed on the UNESCO List of Endangered World Heritage Sites, entered into force on March 28. From that day on, local and state authorities had to suspend all previously submitted and still unresolved requests for the legalization of illegal structures, both in the UNESCO protected area of the Bay of Kotor and in its so-called buffer zone, which also includes part of the territory of the municipality of Tivat, where Savić built a structure three times larger than permitted.
In his efforts to legalize the facility in the short term before the changes to the law come into force, the Budva businessman was, according to what is written in the legalization decision, “helped” not only by the Legalization Administration, but also by other authorities: the otherwise proverbially very slow Regional Unit of the Real Estate Administration in Tivat already issued a decision on February 9th on the verification of the detailed works and floor plan of the facility, which was prepared on January 24th by the company “Azimut Geo” from Budva, on March 5th the Regional Water Supply of the Montenegrin Coast, and on March 6th the Municipality of Tivat issued “Guga Commerc” certificates “on regulating relations with regard to the payment of a special fee for investments in accordance with the law regulating the regional water supply of the Montenegrin Coast”, while the Municipality also issued “evidence on regulating relations with regard to the payment of a fee for urban rehabilitation” to Savić’s company on three occasions (March 6th, 9th and 16th), which he then submitted to the Real Estate Administration. legalization of illegal buildings.
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