RETURN THE CHANGES OF THE BELGRADE PGR TO THE BEGINNING

Due to the large number of irregularities accompanying the preparation of the Draft of Amendments and Supplements to the General Regulation Plan of Belgrade, we ask the Secretariat for Urbanism and Construction Affairs to suspend the further adoption of this plan and return the procedure to the beginning.

The general regulation plan (PGR) of the city of Belgrade is the umbrella regulatory document of urban planning in Belgrade, under which in the hierarchy of planning acts are detailed regulation plans (PDR) and urban-technical documents for the implementation of plans. The PGR serves to more closely determine the strategic goals defined by the General Urban Plan of Belgrade (GUP). The PGR should take a comprehensive look at the construction area of ​​Belgrade and define the infrastructure and traffic systems, public facilities and surfaces, their purpose and the rules of arrangement and construction. This is an extremely important planning document for the spatial development of the capital city and, consequently, for the quality of life of its citizens.

At the public meeting held on February 1, many citizens submitted various objections to the draft amendments to the PGR. More than 900 objections from citizens were received.

RERI and the Ministry of Space submitted objections and explained why this draft PGR is illegal and harmful for the city of Belgrade. That is why, at the end of the public session, we submitted a request to the Secretariat for Urbanism and Construction Affairs of the City of Belgrade to suspend the further adoption of this plan and return the procedure to the beginning, so that all illegalities and irregularities would be removed, and the public would be enabled to participate effectively in the development of this important document.

We emphasize 4 key objections, due to which we request the complete suspension of the adoption of this document, until it is harmonized with the law:

1. Citizen participation is deliberately limited

One of the legally defined participation mechanisms, public inspection during which comments and suggestions are made on the document should last a minimum of 30 days, with the possibility of extending it if necessary. This time, the legal minimum of 30 days was respected, but it is insight held during the holiday period (December 19 - January 21) when no one could give him the necessary attention. We remind you that it is a document with over 400 pages of textual content and about 140 fragmented graphic attachments (of which some necessary attachments were missing) of extremely large sizes for the capacities of an average computer.

2. The legal obligation to hold a public hearing regarding the Strategic Environmental Impact Assessment Report was not respected

A public presentation must be held for planning documents for which the need to prepare a Strategic Environmental Impact Assessment Report has been established in order to bring the planning and management process of their city closer to the interested public. The public presentation is held during public inspection, and is open to the public. A public presentation and a public session of the commission cannot be equated, because only those who submit objections can participate in the public session of the Planning Commission. This is another example of limiting citizen participation that serves to put the interests of individuals before the interests and needs of the people. In this way, the provisions of the Aarhus Convention, to which Serbia is a signatory, were violated, an international agreement that guarantees the public the right to participate in decision-making in the field of the environment.

3. Neglected hierarchy of urban planning documents

The current PGR of Belgrade was adopted in 2016, and to date over 150 detailed regulation plans (DRP) have been adopted within it. Many are inconsistent with the PGR itself, which is contrary to the Law on Planning and Construction - Spatial and urban planning documents must be harmonized, so that the document of the narrower area must be in accordance with the document of the wider area. Amendments to the PGR were a chance to eliminate illegalities by canceling non-compliant PDRs, but they were nevertheless integrated, almost copied, into the Draft of amendments and supplements to the PGR. We are witnessing the suspension of almost all control mechanisms of the city's urbanization, which drastically increases the risk of an increase in the degree of corruption in the field of planning and construction to the detriment of all citizens.

4. Illegal preparation of the plan by phases and stages

The draft amendments and additions to the subject plan were made through phases and stages. The subject of public inspection was related to the draft of the second stage of the first stage. The decision on amendments to the PGR states that it is possible to adopt the Plan in phases, but the legal provisions that speak about phasing have been misinterpreted. They prescribe the possibility of phased adoption of the plan, but refer exclusively to the stages of the drafting and adoption procedure - decision, early public inspection, public inspection... In addition, the Decision on the preparation of the plan cannot change or suspend the current Law, just as the Law cannot change or suspend the highest legal act - the Constitution. In addition, as the number of phases and stages of the PGR has not been determined, space has been created for legal uncertainty and an uncertain outcome of the procedure for the preparation of the PGR, both in terms of content and in terms of the duration of the entire procedure.

As many as 972 objections were sent to the draft amendments to the PGR. Over 9 citizens were present at the session of the Commission for Plans, which lasted a full 100 hours, in a space in which (even without observing epidemiological measures) half as many people can sit.

Although the number of objections submitted, as well as the number of attendees, was assessed by Marko Stojčić, the chief city planner and chairman of the Planning Commission of the Belgrade City Assembly, as a positive outcome of a high-quality planning process and citizens' participation, what was witnessed by the representatives of RERI and the Ministry of Space is far from from such a statement. Namely, instead of the so-called interest, the appeal of the citizens largely corresponded to concern and fear.

According to the planned construction on the green areas of the New Belgrade blocks, unfavorable traffic solutions that threaten Košutnjak, the construction of a solitaire on a landslide near the Prokop railway station, the devastation of the environment in the area of ​​Bare Reva in Krnjača, the construction of the Gondola in the area of ​​Kalemegdan, the problem of arranging the Cerak vineyards, Ade Huje, of the Great War Island, up to the expansion of street parking in the city center, unnecessary restrictions on the construction of cultural and sports facilities and other to the problems of the city, which are significantly deepened by such changes and additions - a large number of citizens expressed enormous dissatisfaction.

Instead of an objective, reasoned and responsible explanation, the representatives of the Urban Planning Institute rejected most of the objections, or decided to "postpone" the discussion on certain issues (such as New Belgrade and Košutnjak) for some future phases of changes to the PGR or for detailed regulation plans, the preparation of which has yet to be completed. coming up. As devastating as this way of conducting the discussion is, the quality of the social dialogue is especially degraded by the remarks of the chief urban planner, who gave himself the right to label numerous citizens, calling their presentation a "political performance", "an ignorant attempt to deceive the public" and "mere entertainment for followers on social networks".

Due to all of the above, and much more not mentioned in this announcement, RERI and the Ministry of Space have sent a request to suspend the process of drafting and adopting amendments to the PGR until it is harmonized with the Law and the Constitution, and until the conditions are created for the general public to present goals that are in line with the public interest of our city and state in an understandable way.