HDL is a company that undertook to build the temple of St. Mark the Apostle, and the Metropolis of Montenegro and the Littoral clearly saw the interest in building a commercial and residential facility on its property. The Metropolitanate, like everyone else, has the right to dispose of its property as it thinks best.
With these words, the mayor of Budva, Marko Bato Carević, commented on the open letter of the designer of the city chapel in Budva, architect Slobodan Bobo Mitrović, regarding the intention to demolish the chapel, all for the sake of building an HDL supermarket on the church lot.
Mitrović assessed that the temple should have been built on the site of the supermarket, but the chapel should have been left, because the local administration did not implement the agreement from two and a half decades ago, where it was supposed to expropriate the land from the church.
The announcement that the chapel will be demolished and relocated a hundred meters away in the city cemetery, as well as the fencing of church land where a supermarket is to be built, and next to it the Church of St. Mark, once again brought to the fore that this city administration is also following in the footsteps of the previous DPS authorities, because of whose decisions Budva has become synonymous with bad urbanization, Mitrović added.
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Tsarević believes that the construction of a temple and a business building on church land is in accordance with the valid DUP "Potkošljun".
"I did not receive an open letter. We have to deal with the facts and I make sure that everything is in accordance with the law. I know that the point of all this is that the temple of St. Mark will be built and that is targeted. Everyone knows very well that the chapel is a temporary building and that it stands on the property of the Metropolis. I am personally grateful to the Metropolis and the church of Sveta Petka, which provided space for the chapel for the period that has expired. "Given that there is now a need to build a temple, we, as someone who is a tenant with a chapel at that location, are obliged to remove it, that is, to move it to the place where it is foreseen in the plan," said Tsarević.
He said that there is no dispute and that he does not interfere in the Metropolis' decision on what to do with its property.
"I am very interested in that temple being built and I am participating in consecrating it, in rejoicing in the temple. Its construction requires a lot of resources. HDL is the company that undertook to build the temple and the Metropolis clearly saw the interest in building that facility. And now, those who write open and closed letters, should have first given remarks for the drafting of the DUP. So, what is important for me as the President of the Municipality is that it is in accordance with the plan, and this is now a belated story, which I think is not benevolent," said Carevic.
Such an opinion is not shared by the president of the Budva URA, Božena Jelušić, who a year ago in the local parliament opposed the decision of the municipality to sell 154.000 square meters of municipal land to HDL for 483 euros, so that it could build a business facility.
Then, after a heated parliamentary debate, 11 councilors voted to sell the land to HDL, six from the DF, three from Montenegro and two independent councilors, while eight councilors from the ranks of the Democrats and a URA/SDP councilor were against.
Commenting on the fact that the chapel will be demolished, Jelušić said that this is neither the first nor the last time that the city is losing its urban functions, that it is losing parks, playgrounds, that all the facilities that make the city a city are disappearing.
"I assume that we are all at a loss, first of all the city, the Municipality is at a loss in its own way, and so is the Church. The Church of St. Mark has been long awaited in Budva, and among members of all confessions there is absolutely no dispute about it. However, here there is a conflict between urban functions and certain, previously completed jobs, which were not properly completed. Now we have come to a situation where the construction of the Laković shopping center has almost completely compromised the area where there is no room, that is, the chapel has to be moved, if there is to be a temple there. However, there could have been a chapel and a temple there, and that is important," said Jelušić.
Jelušić: The municipality and the church deceived us during the voting
Jelušić says that she voted against selling the land to HDL, because it "hits" the road.
"It is my consistent vote as a representative of the URA, that we cannot sell all the land that is next to the road either to private individuals or institutions, because the traffic collapse in this city is such that every parking lot and every possibility of widening the road is extremely important to us.
In the meantime, I realized that the project that we were convinced would only lead to employment and would have one floor for a supermarket and another for church premises, has meanwhile become a building with apartments for the market. That project circulated on social networks long before our vote in the assembly, and I had absolute confidence in both the institution of the Municipality and the institution of the church. I really couldn't believe that under the name of some kind of employment company, we were actually shredding the location for the St. Mark's temple that was supposed to be there. We know that the land for the construction of the chapel was exempted but not paid for and that other concessions were given to the church. This kind of planning, which shifts the city's functions depending on where you have a private investor interested in building either a supermarket or apartments, cannot be tolerated neither by the temple nor the city chapel, which is located in a dignified and appropriate place and for which, in the opinion of the main board of the URA, it was necessary to declare public interest even before Laković started construction," said Jelušić.
HDL has fenced off the plot and will erect the building in six months
A few days ago, the HDL company fenced off the church plot and put up a building permit board with a photo of the commercial-residential building - garage, ground floor and first floor, which is a total of 2.970 square meters of gross construction area. This is the first phase. In February, the chief city architect Ana Samardžić gave her consent to the conceptual design of the business-residential building, which envisages two phases of construction - "Phase I" construction of the basement, ground floor and first floor, and the second phase, if realized, envisages the construction of II, III, IV and V floor with a total of 59 residential units.
The first phase envisages the construction of a building made of concrete and a facade that will not be like the other supermarkets that this company has. It remains to be seen whether the investor will honor what was signed by the chief architect.
As it says on the board at the construction site, the works are being carried out by the company Bemax and the deadline for completion is only six months, i.e. April.
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