Our green island in Belgrade has everything we need: buildings, shopping mall, theatre, pharmacy store, library, coffee shops, playgrounds, sports facilities, lots of trees, a meadow, school…And all that, right next to the Boulevard, but away from the traffic. Green, safe, but in the downtown.

Saturday, 11/06/2005. 8 o’clock in the morning. We have escorted the children from the neighborhood to the excursion. While the buses are sliding down the Boulevard, our green island is turning into the wasteland…

“People stop! This must be some mistake! We are asking the manager to give the workers a lunch or coffee break. Until we come to some senses. The manager says: “I am not allowed to do that. I have been asked at six o’clock this morning, to collect workers and urgently come here. Here is the official decision…”

We read in disbelief. 

The decision says that on the parcel where the park, children’s playground and basketball playground are now situated, a building with both apartment and business space will be erected!

We cry. We scream and make useless phone calls. We beg…

“If it is according to the law, why such a rush. With so many workers. So many power saws. On Saturday’s morning? Without any warning. Deviously and cowardly. Hiding behind the municipality decision on cutting down the trees and the manager-executor, who has to obey his supervisors. The ones who are officially responsible, WE HAVE NOT SEEN YET…

The city authorities say that this has never been a green area.

In the papers, naturally. It has not been mentioned. It goes without saying. The construction documentation is what is valid for them. The real  green area, does not exist for them. They will turn it into the papers too.

And these kids? Do they exist in the construction documentation?

Where to let them play, once the building appears? After all, before we had decided to have children, we should have asked the future politicians whether they had planned to build or destroy their space for playing and growing-up.

Legal papers legalize vandalism. The City Architect has become the City Attorney. Instead of defending the public welfare, the welfare of the citizens that had voted and are to do it again, he defends the construction documentation.

S

For years they have systematically worked on legalizing something that is completely beyond any understanding. Immoral. Uncivilized. Voices of reason have tried to prevent it, but they were suppressed in time. One by one. From year to year, the same incomprehensible documentation has been planted before various commissions, until the composition of those commissions was filtrated enough to give consent in legalizing the crime.

Do they think that the members of those commissions are not here to testify about it? About the bygone years of 1987, 1998, 2000, 2002, 2003, 2005?

Do they think that the documents they had been rigidly planting, over and over again, do not exist? Horticulture engineers, civil engineers, architects, traffic engineers, ecologists… People with consciousness, who have expressed their professional and human disagreement with the bad decision.

They testify about their struggle, the battles won and the wars lost.

OFFICIAL ANNOUNCEMENT FROM THE MEDIA DEPARTMENT OF THE CITY ASSEMBLY

Friday, 24 June 2005.

It has never been anticipated that the parcel on the corner of Stanislava Sremcevica and Toneta Tomsica Streets would become the park area

A series of false information and unfounded interpretations about bringing up the construction parcel on the corner of Stanislava Sremcevica and Toneta Tomsica Streets, to its true function, that have appeared in the public media, during the last couple of days, have misled part of the public audience, as well as the tenants from the mentioned streets.

The city’s construction lot in the real estate registry parcels 7333, 7335, 7339 and part of the parcel 7801 has never been projected as park area, but primarily as a business space. With amendments and addendums of the Detailed Urban Plan for block Lipov lad in 1987, part of the business space was renamed into the business-apartment space (The Official Gazette of the City of Belgrade, no. 29/87), because of the difficulties and changes in processing the demands for newly-built areas. With the decision of the Executive Council of Belgrade City Assembly, dated 25 May 2000, the construction parcels were given for further utilization to Construction Company “Crnotravac”. Since renaming part of the business space has called for the adoption of the new Regulation Plan, the Executive Council of Belgrade City Assembly, on the session held on 27 May 2002, endorsed the Draft of a Regulation Plan for the Boulevard of King Alexander, and Streets of Stanislava Sremcevica, Toneta Tomsica, Vranjska and Gvozdiceva, and directed it for further public inspection and discussion. The announcement about public inspection and discussion, that was advertised on 31 May in several daily papers, has provided the information that the Draft Plan would be displayed for public insight from 17 June until 17 July 2002, and that expert analysis would be held on 22 July of the current year. The Assembly of Zvezdara Municipality and the Institute for Protection of the Culture Monuments in the City of Belgrade, took part in the process, and during the debate, not a single remark was raised.  Belgrade City Assembly adopted the Regulation Plan on the meeting held on 13 December 2002. According to the Plan, the Secretariat for Urbanism and Construction Works issued the decree to Construction Company “Crnotravac”, thus giving permission for the construction of the business-apartment edifice, which legally encircled the process, initiated back in 1987. 

In relation to everything stated so far, it could be noted that the parcels in question, have never been designed for anything else but construction of a multipurpose edifice, and the City Administration has cleaned the area and made it green, in order to prevent the creation of garbage wasteland or unhygienic settlement, until it is brought up to its legitimate function. The same has been done with the so-called “Miticeva rupa” on Slavija square.

To obey the law regulations and procedures is the principle from which none of the authorities should ever give up, in this or in any other case.

THE REPLY OF THE STEERING COMMITTEE FOR PROTECTION OF THE FIFTH PARK

This area, at one time, was indeed imagined as business space, but it was anticipated that this space would cover only one fourth of the area that is now usurped. Besides, an expert in this field must have noticed that the inhabitants of this settlement REALLY DO NEED THIS GREEN AREA. He could have altered the Detailed Urban Plan, so as to recognize this green area as legal, since it is the factual state, instead of letting the monster-building grow up to unimaginable proportions, where the whole green area, including the non-stop used basketball playground, would vanish, instead of using only half of it, as it was originally planned.

We are not obliged to read the daily newspapers, but we expect from our municipal and local representatives to inform us properly and on time about matters that concern us. If during party campaigns they can shower us with election pamphlets, they may as well stick an announcement about public debate, on the building’s entrance.

It is not true that during the debate not a single remark was raised. The municipal representative had a remark on the construction of garages, but this remark was declined. Besides, the discussion was preceded with the expert analysis of the horticulture engineer, where value of the parks in this settlement and the obligation to keep and maintain them was pointed out, but the expert’s opinion was not taken into consideration. We have documentation to prove this.

A lot of proceedings commenced in the 90-ies, 80-ies, 70-es, only to be discontinued as bad ones, soon after 2000. Some of them were continued and the consequences of such decisions come back to us as a boomerang. Our process belongs to the second group.

It is not true that these parcels have not been designed for anything else but construction of a multipurpose edifice. According to the original idea of the city architect that has designed the whole settlement, they were projected as a garage space for the settlement inhabitants, but later were re-designed into the (smaller) business space, which in the third version grows up to unreasonable proportions and becomes multipurpose space: apartment-business-garage.

Has any city planner or architect gone out into the field to see how it looks like? To talk with the inhabitants? To investigate and recognize their needs? To notice the urban units that are endangered by capricious drawing of buildings into free areas? To see big and valuable trees that should never be cut down? To see the children who will sit on the sidewalk surrounded by the buildings which are only 12 meters away from each other.