11.800 requests for the legalization of a building or part of a building were submitted to the Secretariat for Urbanism and Spatial Planning of the Municipality of Bar this year, and that service issued around 40 building permits, and will approve another 20 by the end of December.
This was told to "Vijesti" by the acting secretary of that secretariat. Ognjen Leković.
He explained that the secretariat is divided into three parts - dealing with urban planning, construction of facilities, and legalization.
When it comes to spatial planning, Leković pointed out that the amendment to the Spatial and Urban Plan (SUP) of Bar is underway, and that the document received a negative opinion, among other things due to traffic solutions.
Last week, he said, they were informed by the Ministry of Spatial Planning, Urbanism and State Property and received documentation on traffic solutions from the Montenegrin Spatial Planning and Urbanism Plan, which they can apply. Along with this documentation, they received an accompanying instruction, signed by the Minister. Slaven Radunović, which states that the new traffic solution for the Adriatic-Ionian Highway, i.e. the bypass around Bar and the Bar-Boljare road, will also be applied to lower-level planning documents, so that the Coastal Zone Plan, as well as the existing Bar Urban Development Plan, will not proceed according to the traffic solutions for these two traffic routes, but rather according to the solution from the Urban Development Plan of Montenegro.
"In other words, if a plot or facility that was within the scope of the Bar-Boljare corridor, which was previously two to two and a half kilometers, and has now been reduced to 600 meters, and if those plots were included in that corridor by a coastal zone or road, and we were unable to act in terms of legalization or construction of new facilities, or construction of local facilities of general interest, now it will be possible at all those locations, but it will not be possible at new locations that are themselves included in this corridor," Leković explained.
He specified that the Bar-Boljare corridor was reduced to 600 meters, and increased in relation to the Adriatic-Ionian Highway because it was planned at 250 to 300 meters.
Designers (don't) know the new law
"The Bar Secretariat currently has around 20 requests for infrastructure facilities that are in progress and the vast majority will be resolved soon," said Leković, adding that in these cases the biggest problem is always resolving property-legal relations, because ownership rights need to be submitted for a building permit.
Expropriation or consent of the plot owner is the biggest obstacle faced when issuing this type of permit. Facilities under the Detailed Urban Plan (DUP) are most often associated with expropriation, while those of general interest also use the principle of granting consent because plot owners need to give such approval.
The Secretariat has issued 40 building permits this year and, according to Leković, they hope that the rest (about 20 requests) will be resolved by the end of the year.
Another obstacle they face in this area, he said, is that designers are not sufficiently familiar with the new regulations since the new law was passed. Leković says they are used to working on projects without institutional control, which now leads to a large number of project corrections.
Therefore, they plan to hold a meeting for local designers in the near future, where they would highlight the problems that would make it easier for the Secretariat to issue building permits, and also give designers the opportunity to express the problems they encounter in relation to the administration. These are mainly fire and electrical approvals that are long awaited, traffic permits that are issued according to some new standards...
"So that they don't end up in a situation where they don't get the approval of the chief city architect, because if they get his approval or the approval of the chief state architect, that doesn't mean they will get the approval of the Secretariat for a building permit because that might mean that the approval was given according to the previous law, which didn't take into account the area of greenery, the number of parking spaces, the purpose of the building, and the number of housing units," he explained.
Neighbors can blackmail
Leković said that the adoption of the new Law on the Legalization of Illegal Structures, which came into force in August this year, brought numerous changes that need to be presented to citizens in a way that they can understand.
"For example, under the old law, it was not possible to legalize a building if it was not included in the planning document, or if it did not meet the four parameters from the DUP that had to be met, which they controlled in the secretariat, and these were also requirements that a large number of buildings did not meet. The new law abolished this and enabled the legalization of buildings that are up to the regulation line towards the road, and up to one meter towards the neighbor for buildings up to 200 square meters, or two meters for buildings over 200 square meters. This created a new problem. The owners of neighboring plots may be unknown owners in the real estate register, they may be foreign citizens, it may be a neighbor with whom they do not talk and deliberately do not give consent," said Leković.
It could also happen, he says, that a neighbor who is prone to blackmail recognizes the possibility of blackmailing the owner of the neighboring plot.
"It does this by exploiting the regulation that states that anyone who does not legalize a building will pay a city rent of one to three percent of the city land use tax. One to three percent of the value of the building should be paid every year, for life, because they did not legalize the building and the owner of the neighboring plot did not give consent. The owner of the neighboring plot then asks for two percent of the annual value of the building to give him consent. In that sense, the owner of the neighboring plot is stronger than the state. He can even ask for part of the building. We have not had any cases where we have information that this has happened, but we have had a large number of cases where the owners of neighboring plots will not give consent," Leković said.
He assessed that the law is unclear in many articles, especially to citizens. Leković's service has a large number of requests for interpretation, to which the ministry responds, which he particularly emphasized and praised, because it has not happened that they were provided with answers in this way. However, as he states, in some cases the answer is only quoting the law, but he explains this by assuming that Radunović's department does not want to publicly declare itself on certain issues for which they do not have a solution either.
Bonus video:
