The representatives of Crmnica have reached an agreement with "Monteput" and the competent ministries regarding the route of the planned highway through Crmnica, "Vijesti" learns.
They were previously dissatisfied with the corridor presented in the Draft Spatial Plan of Montenegro (NPPCG) until 2040, which referred to the section of the Bar-Boljara highway that will go around Lake Skadar.
Last Friday, a meeting was held in the premises of "Monteput" with representatives of the local communities of Crmnica, and representatives of the Municipality of Bar, as well as the Ministry of Spatial Planning, Urbanism and State Property and the manager of the PPCG were also present. Svetlana Jovanovic, as an interested party.
This was confirmed to the "News" from the Ministry of Spatial Planning, Urbanism and State Property.
As they stated, at that meeting, the representatives of "Monteput" presented several variants of the route of the highway that would pass near their villages, and in relation to what was presented, the locals expressed their satisfaction with the willingness to consider their proposals and possibly find a conceptual solution.
"Furthermore, after additional interventions by the representatives of the Municipality of Bar, it was agreed that additional hydrological analyzes will be carried out, which "Monteput" will incorporate in the next versions of the interested parties", they said.
That ministry did not answer specific questions regarding the route of the highway, the passage through the villages and its vicinity.
The agreement was preceded by three meetings. The residents of Crmni formed an informal working team that will represent them, consisting of spatial planners, hydraulic engineers, architects and lawyers. They were delegated by the representatives of Crmnik villages to advocate and work on changing the original route of the highway.
Igor Gojnic, One of the representatives of the people of Crmni from that team told "Vijesta" that mostly everyone agreed on one of the options that was presented to them at the last meeting, and that they are satisfied, but that they still cannot talk about the specific location.
"Everything started from the Spatial Plan that was presented in the Municipality of Bar. In principle, certain corridors were given that did not correspond to what we wanted or thought should be built. After that, through the Ministry of Transport and Maritime Affairs, we made contact with "Monteput". At the first meeting, we gave them our proposals and then looked for alternative corridors with them," he said.
Everything that the people of Crmnic demanded, that is, their representatives, was respected by the authorities, Gojnić assessed. They presented them with several corridors that can be implemented, and they mostly agreed on one of the proposed ones.
"That corridor now needs to be technically worked out and we need to see the technical solutions, how it should look like. In principle, we have found alternative corridors that can fully satisfy our requirements. Now we are waiting for that part to be implemented by experts, to see if environmental protection procedures can be respected," he said.
He did not want to talk about where the highway will go because it is still subject to agreement. Gojnić is satisfied with the cooperation they had with the authorities and said that they were as accommodating as possible regarding their requests.
As he said, they had no special communication with the Municipality of Bar because they did not need it. After deciding who the representatives would be, they began direct communication with the ministries, which turned out to be a correct decision that bore fruit.
Gojnić emphasized that the Ministry of Transport and Maritime Affairs expressed a great desire to solve this problem even after their first address, so the first meeting was organized through their mediation. After that, the people of Crmnica got in touch with the director of Monteput Milan Ljiljanić and the resolution of disputed points concerning the highway around Lake Skadar was started.
The Municipality of Bar did not answer the questions of "Vijesti" on this topic, nor did they, among other things, submit comments and suggestions on the Draft Spatial Plan of Montenegro.
In the Draft Spatial Plan until 2040, it is written that an analysis of several variant solutions was done, through studies and documentation at different levels of elaboration. Along with a multi-criteria analysis of the variants, the Draft PPCG proposes a variant of the corridor and route of the highway that goes around Lake Skadar, and in the Berana area it goes around the town center of Berana. Although an expressway was previously planned, it has now been given the status of a highway.
"Given the importance of the port of Bar, it is proposed that the section from the exit from the Sozina tunnel to Bar has the profile of a highway, and not a thoroughfare for high-speed motor traffic, as it has been figured in the planning and technical documentation until now. The analysis related to the route of the highway in the area from Crmnica to Stari Bar can be carried out at the level of the planning documentation that includes the city of Bar (e.g., PUP)", writes the NPPCG.
The initial representation of this section of the road on the map in the Draft shows that it should go through several villages in Crmnica, among which are Gluhi Do, Bukovik, Tomići, Gornji and Donji Brčeli, Podgor... On the map, it is shown with a dotted line that represents the subject of the corridor investigation through the conceptual solution, under the jurisdiction of "Monteput".
It was pointed out there that the Bar area with the Riviera has a particularly favorable position due to the port of Bar and good traffic connections by rail and road. The connection of the Bar-Boljara highway with the highway through Serbia has been agreed upon, and the junction of the roads through the two countries has been defined. The connection was made in Boljari, locality Borov do, writes the NPPCG.
Bar-Boljare highway traffic priority
According to NPPCG, and on the basis of the Traffic Development Strategy in Montenegro, the continuation of the construction of the Bar-Boljara highway, namely the Mateševo-Andrijevica section, and then the other sections, is singled out as a priority. The construction of the Adriatic-Ionian highway is a priority for transversally connecting the country with the environment. For a better internal connection, it is necessary to build bypasses of the coastal cities that are on the route of the expressway.
At the public debate that was held in Bar in March, Dejan Đurović, the chairman of the Parliamentary Committee for Tourism, Agriculture, Ecology and Spatial Planning, said that there was a change in the plan, so instead of a high-speed road, a highway will be built that will go towards Podgorica and Ulcinj and near Virpazar will merge into the Bar-Belgrade-Budapest highway.
At that time, the people of Crmni complained to the representatives of the institutions that they did not make the plan transparent enough and that the highway routes cross villages, houses, cemeteries, vineyards and religious buildings.
The head of the NPPCG development, Svetlana Jovanović, answered them that she fully supports the development of Crmnica and that no corridor or route should be allowed to endanger any village, let alone churches, estates and vineyards.
"It is as important to me as if it were a national park. Often these lines are such that you have the impression that they cross the entire village. We will give you some open formats to look at it in more detail. I think there is a bit of confusion," she said. She promised that no route will damage heritage and cultural heritage.
The route is such that you cannot say that it crosses the village, said Biljana Ivanović, who was closely involved with traffic in the Draft. She added that "Monteput" on their initiative initiated the creation of a conceptual solution in order to establish the routes more precisely.
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