The draft of the Spatial plan for the coastal area of Montenegro ignores the numerous problems that face coastal municipalities and as such can not represent a document on which will be further developed Montenegrin coast.
The draft plan proposed by the Ministry of Sustainable Development and Tourism is neither a recovery document because problems such as illegal construction and the catastrophic situation in which the local and inter-municipality of infrastructure continue to be swept under the carpet. This significantly limits the potential of this document which should ideally provide answers to many issues that municipalities face when it comes to the management of space, and also to establish a balance between the need for further exploitation of space and sustainable use of available resources.
The problem of illegal construction for more than a decade represents one of the most pressing problems faced by planners in Montenegro, especially when it comes to spatial planning on the coast. When we talk about this planning document, the problem of illegal construction is not addressed adequately, nor is recognized as a serious limiting factor for sustainable regional planning. A very small number of municipalities, especially those on the coast has a precise record of illegally constructed buildings or structures whose current status is not in accordance with the law and regulations in the field of spatial planning and construction.
Even if this planning document does not to have the ultimate goal of solving the problem of illegal construction, we believe that is of indisputable importance that this issue is properly analyzed in order to comprehend the real limitations in spatial planning. In that regard, it is needed at the level of each municipality to do a detailed analysis of the problem and prescribe a set of measures to minimize the impact of illegal construction on the possibilities for further evaluation of space and sustainable planning at the level of the entire coast.
In addition, as so far at the municipal level there was a tendency that in planning documents the problem of illegal construction was solved by merely fitting it into the plans, there is a real fear that with this approach is significantly limited impact of this draft on the space. Unfortunately, neither in this document is not a clear tendency to make a deviation from this practice, but still can be seen the tendency of so-called “switching” objects in space where the larger spatial units are adapted with facilities, instead of that a space dictates purpose.
In addition, it is not necessary to explain how important is local infrastructure, particularly road, power and utility, for the healthy basis for all further planning of space in coastal areas. Unfortunately, most of the coastal municipality does not have the updated inventories of local infrastructure which creates significant problems when it comes to making local planning documents.
The lack of precise data on infrastructure makes the process of inter-municipal planning almost impossible and the situation of the infrastructure on the ground significantly limits the potential of space for further evaluation and for its sustainable planning.
As was to be expected, use of the area is predominantly in a function of tourist valorization, at least by definition of terms used in the document to describe the capacities of tourism. However, experiences from analyzing local planning documents tell us that behind the so-called tourist capacities often are hidden apartments for the market, especially when it comes to villas and apart hotels.
The local “version” of this type of accommodation means practically an apartment that was sold to the final owner with little or no joint activities that would complete “resort” make indeed as tourist capacity. In this way, not only is avoided payment of compensation for land, but also irrevocably devastate space with new residential buildings.
Even the optimistic scenario of processors of plan foresees a significant increase in the capacity of housing on the coast which is unacceptable given the current capacities and the total number of apartments built in the previous period. On the number of housing units in the future are planned a the new ones without serious analysis to address the issue how such a jump will affect the local infrastructure, including traffic, the traffic at rest, electricity and sewage network and water supply. A particular problem represent the capacities of service facilities on the coast, above all beach facilities, which are and the existing number of apartments more than burdened.
We believe that instead of a new building wave at Montenegrin coast is needed a serious revitalization strategy, or re-cultivation of the existing building stock in order to optimally save the space as a threatened resource.
Considering all the above, we believe that it is more than necessary to withdraw the proposed draft from further procedure, return it for revision in order to respond to more than the serious challenges that face the project of the planning of the coastal area.
Dejan Milovac
Director of the Research Center of MANS
