Land is a limited resource

Land is a limited resource on which there are forests, fields and seas, on land we build our homes and cities, we grow food, we extract ores from it that enable us to progress. By treating that precious resource as a commodity and selling it for the sake of a short-term increase in the budget, the state also deprives the citizens of the opportunity to decide what the purpose of that land will be - whether another multi-story residential building will be built on it or perhaps a park, a school, a health center. In a situation where private interest has so much influence on the processes of planning and excessive construction, transferring more and more public spatial resources, including land, into private ownership will only intensify the existing problems in the development of the city. 

By selling public land, we risk increasing social stratification

The quality of life in the city largely depends on access to public services and spaces that we use every day - from kindergartens, schools, health centers, parks, to cultural centers. The tendency to extract the greatest possible economic value from a plot of land leads to the fact that in the competition between different uses, public services always lose to luxury apartments for trade, office space or a shopping center.

If we see a just city as one where these public functions are available to all at a similar distance from the place of residence, then we must also understand and treat land as a key resource in shaping the city in accordance with the needs of people and local communities from the entire city.

By losing green spaces to the detriment of densely built residential blocks, we harm both the environment and ourselves

Since 2010, Belgrade has lost a quarter of its green areas, and now it has only 20% of green areas of the city's total area (which is twice less than the European average). If greenery continues to lose the battle with commercial-residential construction, the big question is what kind of city we will live in just a few years from now. 

The effects of climate change are already disturbing and we cannot treat the trend of increasing climate disasters casually. A more responsible attitude towards greenery, which does not exist indefinitely, is first on the list of things to which we should devote ourselves. It is extremely important, because it has the function of absorbing precipitation, which reduces the possibility of flooding, but also helps to cool the space and preserve fresh and cleaner air. 

How can planning prevent further alienation of public land?

As a strategic plan, the General Urban Plan of Belgrade until 2041 could be clearly determined according to the sustainable management of land in public ownership, as an important element of city planning in the public interest. However, the concept of the plan does quite the opposite. The goals of the plan in the area of ​​land policy and construction land are mostly aimed at improving the conditions for privatization land and support to investors (such as subsidies in the field of construction land, quick and efficient access to locations, etc.). At the same time, according to the text of the plan, the goal of the city is to increase the profit from the sale of land, but at the same time reduce expenses for infrastructure, which, apart from investors, is also of public interest for the development of the entire city.

It is particularly worrying that, under the pressure of the market logic of land treatment, GUP 2041 also proposes the possible relocation of public purposes, such as colleges, kindergartens, fire stations or hospitals, outside the city center because they occupy economically valuable city land. 

Therefore, the answer in the GUP Concept to all the risks of the current public land management policy is actually that in the next twenty years we will have even more difficult access to public institutions, less and less green areas, and in addition we will be left without valuable public land and with even less maneuverability space to agree on how we want our city to look and function.

Continuing the trend that the GUP concept confirmed, amendments to the Law on Planning and Construction, it was adopted to abolish the fee for the conversion of the right of use to the right of ownership over the land, which means that many investors will come into possession of valuable public land even without any compensation. This practically means that we don't even sell, but we give away land to investors.

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In the course of 2022, we issued two publications dealing with public land, Policy for the management of construction land in public ownership written by Srđan Đurović i Urban planning and land management in public ownership, whose analysis was done by Ana Graovac. You can find both by clicking on the links, or in the section Publications.