Mirko Popović: Manipulation of public insight into plans for the development of Belgrade

Public review of the draft amendments to the General Regulation Plan (GRP) of Belgrade, which began on December 20 this year and will last until January 20, 2022, is underway. It is the most important document on the spatial development of Belgrade and the quality of life in it. It contains, among other things, land plans, green areas, traffic systems of the capital, as well as plans for Kosutnjak and Kalemegdan.

In connection with the decision to hold a public review of such an important document during the New Year and Christmas holidays, several non-governmental and civil sector organizations immediately issued a statement protesting the procedures that prevent direct participation of citizens in decision-making. The announcement was sent to the Secretariat for Urbanism and Construction Affairs of the City Administration of the City of Belgrade and the Commission for Plans of the City of Belgrade Assembly, with a request to postpone the public inspection.

A week later, when asked by "Vremen" whether they had received an answer from the competent institutions, the program director of the non-governmental organization RERI (Regulatory Institute for Renewable Energy and the Environment) Mirko Popović said: "As for the public inspection procedure, I do not expect that change anything. I expect that the City of Belgrade will ignore the reasonable request of organizations not to organize public inspections at a time when it is not their time. In particular, I draw attention to the fact that the committee for the implementation of the Aarhus Convention points out in its recommendations precisely the bad practice of organizing public inspection during holidays".

He adds that the City of Belgrade is "doing exactly that", that it is "a leader in manipulating the public when it comes to public insights", and that this is not the first time. They also reacted last year in the case of Makis, when the public was prevented from entering and participating in public inspection "according to some meta-legal criteria".

"These are all ways in which the public is prevented from exercising its right." It is malicious management. It is an effort to exclude the public," explains Popović.

In their announcement, the signatory organizations (New Planning Practice, Ministry of Space, RERI, CEUS, Ulice za bicycliste) point to other problematic procedures for amending and supplementing the PGR. One of them, as stated, is completely confusing for citizens: an early public inspection of the 1st phase of the PGR and a public inspection of the 1st stage of the 1st phase of the PGR were held, and the criteria and justifications for separating the elements of the city's development are unclear, as and their separate consideration.

Popović says that "the process of creating the PGR is marked by a phenomenon that did not happen before, which is that it is divided into some phases."

Another phenomenon is both illegal and malicious, he believes: "It is that the plan of general regulation, as a plan of a higher order, is harmonized with the existing plans of a lower order."

And he adds: "This means that in the period that precedes the preparation of the PGR and that precedes the preparation of the General Urban Plan (GUP), which experts often call the urban constitution of a city, smaller plans, plans of detailed regulation for smaller urban units are adopted and that solutions from detailed regulation plans are then dictated by solutions at the level of the general regulation plan. This is now being done in order to harmonize the urban and spatial organization of the city with the particular interests of those in power in Belgrade and various private interests".

In addition to these three key processes, Popović mentions a fourth, which is the "accumulation of planning documents". So, at the same time as the public inspection of the PGR, the strategic assessment of the Belgrade Development Strategy until 2027 on the environment is underway, with the deadline for public consultations from December 23 to January 6, in short, in the middle of the holidays. "It's not a mistake," he says, "it's not speed, it's an obvious intent to turn the public off." These are anti-civilization actions."

"I will again refer to the Aarhus Convention," concludes Popović, "which says that the authorities should enable effective participation of the public within reasonable deadlines, which implies that it should not be during holidays."

The Aarhus Convention was adopted in the international framework in 1998, with the aim of strengthening the role of citizens and civil society organizations in environmental issues, and Serbia ratified it in 2009, by adopting the Law on the Ratification of the Convention (https://www.zzps.rs/wp/pdf/Arhuska%20konvencija.pdf?script=lat).

Read daily news, analysis, commentary and interviews at www.vreme.com