Locals of Lepetana will organize a protest and one-hour blockade of the Jadranska Magistrala at the locality of Luka on Thursday at five minutes to 12 o'clock, due to the years-long deafening of the state of Montenegro to their requests to finally pass and adopt spatial planning documentation for the area of that local community in Municipality of Tivat.
The area of that MZ, i.e. the settlement of Lepetane and its surroundings, is the only one in the territory of the municipality of Tivat that does not have a valid DUP, which is a problem that has been going on for years. DUP Lepetane should cover an area of 20,24 hectares and include the territory of the northernmost part of Tivat Municipality. This planning document covers the area from the northernmost border of the Lepetane settlement towards the Verige Strait to Cape Opatovo in the south, excluding the area of the former barracks in Lepetane with an area of 4,69 hectares, for which a special urban project was drawn up and adopted in the Tivat Municipality Assembly several years ago. .
Since the adoption of the current Law on Spatial Planning and Construction, which centralized planning at the state level and exempted it from the competence of local administrations, the Government of Montenegro has on two occasions, starting from 2019 until today, made a decision to initiate the process of drafting a new DUP Lepetan, she chose a processor and gave him a programming task. However, after that, the Government, also twice without any explanation, made decisions on the termination of the validity of its earlier decisions on the drafting of a new DUP for Lepetane. The last time it was done by the government of former Prime Minister Zdravko Krivikapić was on December 29 last year.
In practice, this means that the residents of Lepetan, as well as the local administration of Tivat, have their hands completely "tied" when it comes to the legal construction of any new facility in the area of that local community. Locals cannot build new houses and other facilities, and the local administration of Tivat cannot start the construction of any new public or infrastructure facilities, even though they are badly needed in that settlement where almost nothing significant has been invested for decades. That's why the people of Lepetan held a meeting of the locals about twenty days ago and signed a petition asking the Ministry of Ecology, Spatial Planning and Urbanism (MEPU) to immediately proceed with the drafting of the DUP for that place. However, even after the expiry of the 15-day deadline, the local people have not received any response or reaction from the department headed by Minister Ana Novaković Đurović (URA).
Therefore, as announced at the citizens' assembly, on Thursday they will organize the first protest in that place with a traffic blockade on the Adriatic highway. The blockade, according to the president of the MZ Lepetana, Đur Grubišić, will last an hour.
"We gave the ministry a deadline of about 15 days to give us at least some answer as to when the drafting of the DUP will be started, why it is not being approached, why we are not getting an answer from them, however, as we are used to and expected, there was no answer. That 15-day deadline expired last week, but we were given one more week to organize and announce our protest. We hope that this way we will draw attention to ourselves because we are revolted by the ministry's ignoring and their inactivity," Đurišić told reporters, who also invited other citizens of Tivat to join the Lepetan protest and help them in their efforts to "at least start the construction DUP".
"When there is no DUP, the municipality of Tivat cannot make any significant investments in infrastructure, so we are prevented from having a normal life. They are literally disrupting our quality of life by not passing the DUP for the last 20 years. I would like to praise the municipality of Tivat, which, like us, has written to the ministry countless times and explained how urgent and important it is to pass this DUP. However, like us, the Municipality was left without any answer", explained Grubišić.
Dissatisfied locals called for a protest and blockade of the highway today to the Prime Minister and the leader of the URA Civil Movement, Dritan Abazović.
In the invitation to Abazović, which was also forwarded to the media, the residents of Lepetane stated that they were "honored" to invite the prime minister to a protest "due to the fact that the DUP of Lepetane was never adopted, and several times it came almost to the end of its drafting, and its permanent suspension of adoption."
"As it has gone through several public hearings and as all legal deadlines for its adoption have been broken, we ask that you magnify this event with your presence and explain to the locals, obviously of second rank, when the new DUP will be drawn up and when they will be able to valorize their property, and after ten or more years, get permits for their residential buildings. All construction is impossible, nothing has been invested in this local community for years, and all because DUP has never been passed", the invitation to the Prime Minister states.
"All governments and politicians before yours are responsible for not passing this plan, and your minister, Mrs. Ana Novaković Đurović, is also to blame for the complete ignoring of the ministry that she probably leads and to whom we sent several letters, and last time a petition accompanied by a letter and a notification that we would block the road until we get an answer. In this way, we ask you to stop the extinction of this beautiful coastal town, which is located just a few kilometers from Porto Montenegro, and also by sea to the resort of Porto Novi", said the residents of Lepetan in their address to Prime Minister Abazović.
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