Thursday 27 November is the last day of early public viewing amendment of the General Regulation Plan (GRP) of the construction area of the seat of the local self-government unit - city Beograd where it was possible to see during the past three weeks what is intended with the city, and to react accordingly.
Legalizing demolition
The plan covers the entire territories of the municipalities of Stari grad, Vračar, Savski venac, Novi Beograd, Čukarica, Rakovica and parts of the municipalities of Zemun, Palilula, Zvezdara, Voždovac, Surčin and Grocka.
Those who submitted objections say that the proposed changes were made to legitimize the illegal needs of the authorities.
Sanja Solarević, an independent councilor in the Assembly of the Sava Region, believes that, among other things, the latest amendments to Belgrade's PGR plan to legalize the Spatial Plan for Belgrade on the Water. This means that the planned demolition of the Fair, concreting of the Terazija terrace and endangerment of the protected natural assets of the Wintering of the Little Crow in New Belgrade and the landscape of exceptional features of Ada Ciganlija are planned.
He reminds that "according to the PGR of Belgrade, which is now in force, it is planned that the Fair complex will be for commercial contents. Then, according to the valid General Urban Plan of Belgrade, which is in the hierarchy of planning documents at the level of the Constitution, it is also planned that the Fair will be for commercial contents."
"However, this was completely ignored in the Spatial Plan of Belgrade on the Water: the purpose was changed from commercial to residential. Plus, the construction of towers up to 120m high and the demolition of the entire Belgrade Fair complex except for Hall 1 was made possible," says Sanja Solarević.
He explains that that is why now, in order to legally implement what is foreseen in that Spatial Plan, "the SNS-SPS government is trying to legalize the destruction of our cultural heritage and protected natural assets through these changes to the General Regulation Plan of Belgrade and destroy the Fair in the same way it is trying to demolish the General Staff."
He says that "the current attempt to legalize that Spatial Plan through changes to the PGR of Belgrade, is in the range of the authentic interpretation of the lex specialist for the General Staff."
Public to be private
As BIRN wrote last week, it can be seen from the draft amendments to the PGR that spaces that until yesterday, at least legally, were guaranteed as common, could become free overnight for commercial projects, and those parts of the city would be open to the plans of privileged investors.
Urban planner Bozena Stojić from the Ministry of Space collective told BIRN that "the proposed changes to the current PGR would enable any public purpose - which includes schools, kindergartens, health centers, hospitals, universities, institutes, social protection services, public green areas, forests, traffic areas, communal infrastructure and its accompanying facilities and more - to be changed to any other commercial (private) purpose - such as housing, commercial facilities, economic zones, and another".
"These changes would abolish the few remaining mechanisms for the protection of public spatial assets," said Božena Stojić.
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