The disputed apartment in the heart of Budva's Old Town, in the House of Čekrdeković, which the Municipality has been trying for years to register in its name as a legal heir and which appeared on rental ads, according to the planning document, could neither have been planned there, nor had it ever existed.
This is what the former director of the former Institute for the Protection of Monuments, local architect Slobodan Bobo Mitrović, told "Vijesti", who spoke after "Vijesti" announced that the local administration is trying to evict the parking service employee who has been using it for more than a decade from the attractive two-room apartment. and now he rents it on one of the social networks for 400 euros per month.
Mitrović said that it is inexplicable how much property-legal and urban planning facts are neglected.
"In the first place is the Urban Project 'Old Town' from 1985, which is still valid, because the plans for cultural monuments do not change. "According to the mentioned urban plan, the House of Čekrdeković is intended for culture and there was no provision for it, nor was there any apartment," stressed Mitrović.
According to him, the building was built by RO "Stari grad" in the stage of rough work, and the Cultural Center ordered the interior design for the "House of Art" from him.
"It was planned that on the ground floor there would be some kind of native art, where books on Budva history would be sold, with promotions and talks, and the artworks of Budva artists would be exhibited and sold, as well as cultural souvenirs based on copies of the ethnology of this region. On the first floor is the Gallery, a permanent exhibition of the brothers Bocarić and Marko Gregović, on the second floor are the offices of the director and services, and in the attic there are also offices. There was no apartment in the plan, nor could it be, because the building is not residential," Mitrović emphasized.
He added that the works were partially completed and that the Cultural Center was then transformed into the City Theater, Library, and Gallery of Modern Art.
"That transformation was not carried out by reducing the balance sheet and other mandatory legal actions. By decision of the Municipal Assembly of Budva, the building was given to Grad Theater, but it did not have the means to construct an interior suitable for its needs. The ground floor of the building was constantly ceded by the municipal government to someone, mainly for the pub facilities, for 30 years. That's how that apartment happened, which I don't know how it could have been adapted there at all," emphasized Mitrović.
After the advertisement for the rental of the disputed apartment was published, the assistant secretary for property protection of the Municipality of Budva, Đorđe Zenović, called on the Property Administration to initiate the cadastral presentation procedure as soon as possible and to finally resolve the issue of usurpation of the Municipality's property.
Zenović recalled that back in 2004, the then president of the Municipality of Budva gave the use of the apartment to the municipal firm Parking Servis.
"In 2007, the management board of the Parking service gave the same apartment for temporary use to the employee of that company, Goran Bazović. With the change of government in 2016, the conditions were met for the apartment in question to be returned to the use of the Municipality and the Parking Service, so the then President of the Municipality Dragan Krapović wrote a letter to Director Jovan Gregović, demanding that they do everything within their jurisdiction to return the apartment to the Parking Service. Zenović said.
The Management Board of the Parking Service then revoked the decision of the previous Management Board and required Bazović to move out of the apartment, after which a legal dispute began between the Secretariat for Communal and Housing Affairs, which is responsible for evictions, and the lawyer representing Bazović. The process of registering the property rights on the building in the Old Town has been going on for three years before the Cadastre and the Ministry of Finance, and to this day the Municipality, which is the undisputed founder of the Cultural and Information Center, and therefore the JU Museums and Galleries and the JU Grad Theater, fails to enter as owner.
The works of the occupants of the apartment on the facade of the baroque palace are a shame
Mitrović pointed out that in the Elaborate on the revaluation of cultural assets, which was prepared by the state commission in 2014, of which he was also a member, a whole series of objections to the works on the facade carried out by the user of the apartment, which, as he stated, were a shame for city, given that the Čekrdeković House is the most beautiful baroque palace in the Old Town.
"That apartment was built outside of the urban planning project, even if someone from the municipality gave them some kind of permission. It should be known that the Čekrdeković House was purchased in 1972 by the director of the Cultural Center, Dr. Miroslav Luketić, when the Budva Cultural Center was founded. The last scion of the Čekrdeković family sold the house for a symbolic amount of dinars "when it is intended for culture" - that's what he said. The municipality paid him 50 percent, and the rest was never paid because he died without an heir," Mitrović emphasized.
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