For days, workers were clearing the ruins of old buildings in Kursulina street in the Belgrade municipality of Vračar. At the end of November 2018, the plot was just bare ground and the brown soil was clearly visible in several Google satellite images.
These buildings were demolished at least six months before the investor, Stefial, a well-known former soccer player Dejan Stanković and Dragan Ruvarac, received a demolition permit in March 2019.
A year later, the construction of the complex was completed, which consisted of two almost identical buildings built next to each other, in Kursulina Street and in the neighboring Baba Višnjina Street.
Together, these two buildings have 3.500 m² more than allowed by the building permits.
Both, however, are also legalized, although the Law decisively stipulates that only buildings that were constructively completed, i.e. "under the roof", at the time this law entered into force in November 2015, and which can be seen on the satellite image of the Republic of Croatia, can be legalized. of the Geodetic Institute (RGZ) from that period.
Research of BIRN shows that these are not the only disputed legislations granted to Stefial. The building that this company previously built in Dorćol, with a net 1.700 m² more than the building permit, was legalized even though it was not completed in November 2015.
This company, as well as the Belgrade Secretariat for Legal Affairs, did not respond to BIRN's questions about the construction and legalization of these facilities.
These three buildings of Stanković's company Stefial were found in BIRN's wild construction database, which includes more than 300 buildings with around half a million square meters legalized without a clear legal basis.
Legislation without grounds in Baba Višnjina
The Ribolovačka priča restaurant in the tree at Baba Višnjina 34 has been gathering the residents of Vračar and lovers of fish specialties for years. The restaurant, along with the surrounding houses – up to Kursulina 25 – was demolished in order to start the construction of the first building of the Royal Residence complex.
Stefial received a building permit in June 2018 for the construction of a building of 2.674m² net area with basement, ground floor, three floors and a detached floor.
Although the building permit and location conditions allowed for five above-ground floors, Stefial built seven, so the net area of the building is 4.199m².
The average price of a new building in Vračar in 2018 was around 1.900 euros per square meter, but more expensive locations reached a price of 3.000 euros per square meter, according to data from the Republic Geodetic Institute.
The Law on Planning and Construction stipulates that the investor is obliged to suspend construction and submit a request for the amendment of the building permit, if during construction there are changes in relation to the issued building permit or the main project.
If the changes are not in accordance with the received location conditions, the investor must first request a change to the valid location conditions, and only then a change to the building permit.
Firmi Stefial, however, the change was not necessary. In the new parameters, the Secretariat for Legalization of Buildings, headed by then Secretary Nemanja Stajić, legalized the building on November 5, 2018, even though it was built after 2015 and is therefore not visible on the RGZ recordings that serve as the basis for legalization.
The building is taller than the location conditions allow - instead of 18 meters, BIRN journalists using online tools measured a little less than 30 meters in height.
In the header of the decision on the legalization of the building in Baba Višnjina, the year 2010 is written as the year when the request for legalization was submitted to the Secretariat. It is not clear for which building the legalization was requested, since the satellite image from that period shows that there were several old houses on that place. Among them was the Ribolovačka priča tavern.
The Secretariat for Legislation Affairs did not respond to the request of BIRN journalists to be granted access to the request from 2010 under the Law on Access to Information of Public Importance, and it is not clear how a building that did not even exist in 2010 was legalized based on that request. .
New construction in Kursulina Street: Demolition, then papers
Firmi Stefial has also legalized a twin building on the neighboring plot in Kursulina Street, according to data from the cadastre.
The houses that once existed there were removed in November 2018, although Stefial received permission to demolish them only in March 2019, when the building permit was issued.
Stefial's construction permit allowed the construction of a building with a net area of 2.654m² with a basement, ground floor, three floors and one detached floor.
By the end of the year, the building was under a roof. However, it had two floors more than the building permit prescribed and was legalized with a net 4.702m².
According to the current detailed regulation plan for this part of Vračar from 2004, at the place where Stanković's two buildings were built, the maximum permitted height is 18 meters, and the maximum permitted floor height is five above-ground levels, i.e. the ground floor and four more floors.
Therefore, the Secretariat for Urbanism and Construction Affairs could not issue location conditions or a building permit that would approve the construction of more than five above-ground levels, so both buildings - in Baba Višnjina and Kursulina - received building permits for five above-ground levels each.
But that's when the Secretariat for Legalization of Buildings enters the scene: in December 2015, the City Assembly passed a decision determining the number of floors by city zone for buildings that are in the process of legalization.
According to this decision, on the area where Stanković built these two buildings, it is allowed to legalize two floors more than what is prescribed by the current plan.
Of course, this referred to the already built illegal buildings, according to the Law on the Legalization of Buildings, and not to the buildings that are yet to spring up all over Belgrade.
This building, just like its twin in Baba Višnjina, is taller than the location conditions allow.
While the average price of a new building in Vračar in 2018 was around 1.900 euros, only a year or two later prices rose, so in 2019 and 2020 the average price was 2.000 euros, while the maximum was 4.432 euros, according to the data of the Republic Geodetic institute.
On Halooglasi, it is still possible to see several expired advertisements published in mid-2022 for the sale of an apartment in this building, in which it is written that the price per square meter is around 5.400 euros.
Legislation without grounds in Dorćol
At the address Strahinjića bana 17-19 in Dorćol, on the site of three former low-rise buildings, a residential and business complex of the company Stefial was built in early 2016.
As they would do three years later in Kursulina, here too the old houses were demolished before obtaining the necessary permits.
A satellite image from July 2015 shows a "cleared" plot and an excavator on it.
However, Stefial only received a building permit in September of that year for the "reconstruction, upgrade and extension works" of the residential building, which at that time had already been largely demolished, as well as for the demolition of two other houses on this plot.
The Information Secretariat of the City of Belgrade, through which communication between the media and city institutions is managed, did not forward to BIRN journalists the answers of the Institute for the Protection of Monuments to questions about what Stefial was instructed to do when it comes to the preservation of the building in Strahinjića Ban. BIRN's questions about this facility were not answered by the Secretariat for Inspection Affairs.
The confirmation of the start of the works was obtained at the beginning of October 2015, when the works were already well under way.
Stefial, according to the building permit, was supposed to upgrade the building on the plot so that it has a net area of 3.259m2 with a basement, ground floor, six floors and the last floor removed.
In January, however, the inspectors who visited the construction site found that the works were not in accordance with the permit obtained: the house that was supposed to be reconstructed was demolished; basically, 16×6 meters were added to the building, so its entire height is higher than the project allows; the sixth floor, designed as a recess, was built in full dimensions; the last floor is under a full AB slab, and a gallery was built on it.
Soon, the Secretariat for Inspection Affairs ordered the company Stefial to demolish the illegally erected parts of the building, according to the solutions obtained by BIRN.
Instead of demolition, Stefial received a legalization decision on February 12, although the building was not completed and "under the roof" in November 2015, so that it could be legalized in accordance with the Law.
Stanković and Ruvarac were legalized 1.700m² more than they were allowed to build. The legalized building thus has a basement, a ground floor, a high ground floor, six floors, a detached floor and a gallery, all of which makes up a net of 4.984m².
The average price of a new building in the Old Town in 2016 was 1.900 euros per square meter, and the maximum price was 2.600 euros.
Although the Law on Legalization of Buildings states that only buildings can be legalized on which constructive construction work was carried out when the Law entered into force and which are visible on satellite images of the Republic Geodetic Institute from the same period, the fact is that this Institute is the images that today they use it for legalization, bought only in the summer of 2016.
Nemanja Stajić signed numerous controversial laws
In the meantime, the Secretariat for Legislation Affairs of the City of Belgrade has issued numerous decisions on legislation.
The Secretariat, as well as the Stefial company, did not respond to BIRN's questions about the basis on which this building was legalized.
At the bottom of the decision on the legalization of this building, Nemanja Stajić, at that time the head of the Secretariat for legalization affairs, put his signature.
Nemanja Stajić was questioned in October last year on suspicion that, together with two other people, he legalized non-existent buildings in Gospodara Vučića Street in Belgrade and thus committed the criminal offense of Abuse of Official Position.
Stajić left the post of head of the Secretariat for Legislation Affairs in July 2022, after the general and local elections that were held in April.
Stanković and Ruvarac are expanding their businesses in Belgrade
The company Stefial, owned by Dejan Stanković, was founded in 2010, and Dragan Ruvarac has been the director since 2014, according to data from the Agency for Business Registers. Ruvarac became a co-owner of the company with a ten percent stake in January 2019.
The companies in which Ruvarac and Stanković are co-owners – Stefial, Ninar, Maison Royal and ROD Investment – own buildings in three other attractive locations in Belgrade: in Birčaninova Street and Patrijarho Varnava Street and Krunska Street.
The company Ninar shares the construction plot and building in Birčaninova with the company Sanidei, which illegally built an attic in Senjak on a luxury residential building where the Minister of Finance and former mayor of Belgrade Siniša Mali lives.
Stanković and Ruvarac are also building a building on Kosančićevo venc, and the plan is to build a complex near Manjež Park.
The construction plan across the street from Manjež was opposed by the association for the protection of cultural and historical heritage, which demands that a number of old buildings in Svetozara Markovića Street be adequately preserved, which was supported by the Republic Institute for the Protection of Cultural Monuments and SANA.
As the real estate cadastre shows, Dragan Ruvarac with the company Maison Royal has already started buying apartments in the buildings across the street from Manjež Park up to Kralja Milutina Street, next to Slavija Square.
Although the winning conceptual solution shows that the facades of the old buildings for which the architectural associations are fighting will remain intact, architect Ana Mitić Radulović tells BIRN that the winning solutions in competitions are often not binding for the investor. The companies of Stanković and Ruvarac did not answer what the construction plan is across the street from the Manjež park.
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