There are only traces of greenery in the plans, and increasingly hot summers await us

The practice of publishing early and public insights into urban plans during the summer, during high heat and vacations continued this season as well. While temperatures exceeded 40 degrees in July and August, the Department of Urban Planning and Construction released 20 plans for early public and public review, confirming the tried-and-true tactic of shutting the public out of the planning process by putting plans out for review during the summer months. Although we were happy for a moment when we saw that the spatial plans for parts of the city municipalities of Surčin and Grocka foresee an increase in the territory under forest land, a look at the rest of the plans made our good mood quickly fade away. Namely, almost all other plans envisage the complete abolition of existing public green areas, which are crucial for the city's adaptation to climate change.

Green infrastructure is a network of interconnected greenery that provides a wide range of ecosystem services, such as purifying air and water, increasing the resistance of the environment to extreme weather conditions, creating accessible spaces for recreation, rest and social interaction. Well-planned tree-lined routes provide protection from the sun and thus provide more pleasant pedestrian-cycling corridors, which could contribute to the reduction of car traffic, and thus to lower pollutant emissions.
Despite all the listed benefits, it is often the case that greenery that is included in the scope of the plan is treated as "undeveloped land". The reason for this is that such greenery is not classified as a green area of ​​a specific purpose (park, forest, greenery on the banks of the river, etc.). The fact is that such greenery does not fulfill certain ecosystem services, and therefore cannot be considered as a functional component of green infrastructure, moreover, in the absence of maintenance, they represent a suitable ground for the development of invasive species, which bring more harm than good. However, concreting these spaces, without planning any part of the landscaped public green areas, is not a solution. Belgrade currently has only 9% of public green areas, so it is very important that "free" or "undeveloped" spaces are thought through wisely, and that the main goal of their transformation is to increase the fund of public green areas in the city.

On the other hand, there is also greenery that is planned as such and should be strictly protected. The plan for the general regulation of the system of green areas in Belgrade was created precisely with this goal in mind, to preserve and improve the existing green infrastructure in the city, and to foresee new public green areas. However, that plan was declared optional when it was adopted through the development of detailed regulation plans. In this way, this plan is completely relativized, so it is not surprising that certain locations planned for forests or parks are intended for commercial contents, as, for example, is the case with the Plan for detailed regulation of the area along the highway in Mali Mokro Lug. This plan completely ignores the 23ha of green areas that are designated as forest land by the green area system PGR, defines them as "undeveloped land" and plans their transformation into an economic zone and commercial facilities.

The adoption of the plan of the system of green areas as optional also led to the fact that people who recognize the negative effects of the unlimited construction of residential and business squares at the expense of green areas, remain deprived of argumentation when participating in the public discussion and often receive the answer - yes, forests are planned for that location by the PGR system of green areas, but that plan is not binding for investors. All in all, this treatment of the plan led to the fact that the mechanisms for any form of institutional fight against the degradation of green areas in Belgrade practically do not exist. On the other hand, an insight into the objections to urban plans that self-organized local initiatives sent to the competent institutions during the early and public inspections, and about which they consulted with our team, clearly indicates that citizens are the most sensitive to planning solutions that threaten green areas . It is interesting that in a perfidious manner, one of the few strong arguments that could be used in public debates was knocked out of the citizens' hands, so we wonder if the city administration is even interested in the public interest and when will it show it?

Olga Andrić, Ministry of Space collective
The text was originally published in the weekly Vreme

This text was published with the financial assistance of the European Union. The Ministry of Space collective is solely responsible for its content, and it does not necessarily reflect the views of the European Union. The project is implemented within the framework of the project "EU Resource Center for Civil Society in Serbia", which the Belgrade Open School implements in partnership with civil society organizations.