"Living wall" against excavators - Nikšić restaurateurs have come up with a way to prevent the demolition of illegal buildings

Although the company “Zaštita prostora Crne Gore” carried out a series of successful actions to remove illegal structures throughout the country in 2025, excavators in Nikšić remained powerless in front of the cafe gardens. A series of planned demolitions in Njegoševa Street and on Trg Slobode failed ingloriously because citizens prevented inspectors and workers from carrying out their task with a “living wall”, i.e. by mass sitting at tables. In addition to physical resistance, some owners also resorted to procedural obstacles, such as requests for the exemption of the acting inspectors, which further delayed the execution of the decision.

Analysis of data obtained by SPI for 2025 shows that out of the total planned actions, 24 successful removals were recorded, while 16 actions were completed unsuccessfully or were postponed due to resistance in the field and procedural reasons. These activities, regardless of the outcome, represent a significant financial burden, as the total costs of engaging labor and mechanization amounted to 71.045,70 euros.

It is particularly striking that unsuccessful field trips cost citizens over 4.400 euros. In Nikšić alone, six futile attempts to remove buildings from the gardens of buildings such as “Manipe”, “Gradska-Cataleye”, “Price”, “Pasaža” and “Granda” cost taxpayers exactly 1.521,14 euros. In these cases, the state paid for the hours of excavators and trucks that returned without the work being done because citizens refused to vacate the area or the owners directly announced that they would not allow the work.

While resistance was offered in Nikšić, the situation in other municipalities was more efficient, but not without bizarre obstacles. The most expensive action in 2025 was the demolition of a building within the Clinical Center in Podgorica, which cost a record 20.196,42 euros. A dilapidated ground-floor building with a rectangular base, with walls and a wooden hipped roof structure, was removed; the above-ground part and foundations...

On the other hand, failures caused by extremely unusual circumstances were also recorded: in Budva, in Jaz, the works were interrupted because two women, one of whom was pregnant, and two small children who refused to come out were found in the building; in Sutomore, the excavator could not even approach the building because cars were parked in a row along the very edge of the street, making it impossible to form a construction site. in Konik, the building was demolished, but the foundation slab had to remain intact because there is a power cable underneath it that the works could damage...

In the settlements of Zagorič and Šušanj, interventions were interrupted or modified because the owners reached an agreement with the inspector on site to remove the remains of the buildings themselves in order to avoid further charges from state machinery.

Among the successful actions, the removal of a dilapidated wooden building in Šušanj (3.795,29 euros), a large-scale campaign to clean up billboards and stalls in Ulcinj and Ada Bojana (over 6.900 euros), and a series of demolitions of illegal signs and unfinished houses in Žabljak at the end of December stand out. The year concluded on December 30 with the removal of two tents in the Podgorica settlement of Dajbabe, which cost taxpayers an additional 1.573 euros.

The data for this text was obtained with the help of the MANS application "Ask institutions".