While the agenda of the next session of the Parliament of Montenegro is to amend the Law on the Protection of the Natural and Cultural Area of Kotor, which should help improve the country's reputation in UNESCO, the local government is trying to avoid issuing building permits in areas where it is prohibited. However, before the moratorium, the builders met all the conditions to obtain building permits, so the Kotor government is in a bind.
First of all, it concerns Kostajnica and Dobrota, where the construction of a residential area has begun, which is connected to the sister of former Prime Minister Edin Kolarević.
Today is the founding session of the Council for the Management of the Cultural and Historical Area of Kotor, which is chaired by the President of the SO Kotor, Vladimir Jokić. Yesterday, he announced to "Vijesti" that he would present the problems, which he had previously informed the authorities in the state top. "After all conditions for granting building permits have been formally met, the Municipality must issue eight for buildings in Kostajnica. Also, we need to give a building permit for the "revitalization of the beach in Dobrota, even though, as far as I know, there was never a beach there," Jokić told "Vijesta".
Preparations have begun for the construction of a "tourist resort" called "Dobrota Palazzi" on the plot of land in the Dobrota DUP, with an area of 6.835 square meters, whose formal investor is the company "MD Enterprise" from Kotor. According to "Vijesti", NGO MANS and Kotor's "Expeditio", the documentation of the offshore companies behind it shows that one of the owners is the sister of the former prime minister.
"In this way, everything that was the intention of the moratorium is called into question, because it was UNESCO that pointed to Kostajnica as a problem. When it comes to Dobrota, although in the article of the law that is being changed, there is a ban on embankment of the coast in the Boktor Bay, the reality points to something else," says Jokić.
In December 2017, he wrote to Prime Minister Duško Marković, Minister of Spatial Planning Pavlo Radonjić, representatives of the Ministry of Culture, informing them that the Municipality did not issue building permits, precisely because of the dilemma of the devastation of the area under UNESCO protection.
He says that he only got a response from Radonjić, who wrote to him to act according to the law, that is, that the Municipality should issue building permits. The government previously adopted the Action Plan for the implementation of the decisions of the UNESCO Committee for Kotor, and then the Decision on changing the spatial plan, which prohibited construction in this part.
It is the last attempt to keep the Old Town and the Bay of Kotor area on the list of protected world natural and cultural heritage. One of the measures is to put a temporary moratorium on further construction. At the meeting of the UNESCO Committee in Istanbul in 2016, Montenegro was warned about its attitude towards this area.
The report on the measures taken by the state to change the devastation will be discussed at the session of the UNESCO World Heritage Committee this year.
Before construction, an assessment of the impact on cultural heritage will be made
If the Assembly adopts the Amendments to the Law on the Protection of the Natural and Cultural Area of Kotor, in the future, before each construction, an assessment will be made as to whether construction works may harm the cultural heritage.
This is the key novelty of the government's proposal, which is on the agenda of the session of the Parliament of Montenegro that begins on January 19. Today, the Parliamentary Committee for Education, Science, Culture and Sports will give its opinion on the proposal to amend the law.
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