Over 70% of developed land at the future site of Buljarice will be offered for sale, while 67 percent of total constructed facilities will become flats for the market, according to the draft Master Plan for Buljarica, which came into possession of MANS Investigation Center and the daily Vijesti.
Draft Master Plan for the development of Buljarica, which the government still keeps hidden from the public, was created in September 2013 as a result of the meeting between representatives of the CDC International Corporation (CDCIC) registered in the Cayman Islands, and representatives of the government. On that occasion, an international consulting company DAR Group was engaged to draw up a master plan in order to present the investor’s vision. According to that document, the investor was planning to build the incredible new 11.5 million square meters of residential and office space in Buljarica, of which 9.3 million sqm would be used for apartments, villas and suits intended for resale, or market. That is completely at odds with at least officially declared policy of the government and the Ministry of Sustainable Development and Tourism that the Montenegrin coastline will be protected against further mass construction, particularly against the construction of apartments.
The extent of the future urbanization of Buljarica is perhaps best understood when it is presented by the fact that the draft master plan envisages the construction of over 42,000 apartments of the surface of 160 sqm, 566 villa of the average surface of 900 sqm, 204 luxury villas of 1,500 sqm and 23 super-luxury villas of 3,000 sqm. Buljarica is planned primarily as a future residential area and not a tourist destination, according to the data related to the proportion of the total hotel capacity within the developed land. Thus, the area that will be occupied by hotels and leisure clubs is mere five percent of the planned 11.5 million sqm, or 577,000 sqm. On the other hand, the whole 15 percent of the area will be covered by commercial facilities such as shops, banks, casinos and other similar facilities. Moreover, the site should facilitate a marina with 500 berths in an artificially made channel.
The document, drafted in 2013, envisaged that the construction of Buljarica-bay site would start in 2015 and last until 2034.
The document acquired by MANS and Vijesti is most probably an integral part of the CDCIC offer for Buljarica, which was submitted to the government in mid-July this year, after the public invitation was completed. The government announced the public call for evaluation of the site Buljarica, through the purchase and lease of the land and a part of the maritime zone, on 12 May. Interested parties were offered real estate with the total area of around 4.9 million square meters, registered in the immovable property cadaster municipalities Buljarica I and II and Misici, in the municipalities of Budva and Bar, at the minimum price of €108.76. The land in the coastal zone of the total area of 533,950 square meters and the maritime zone of approximately 585.77 square meters were also subject of a long-term lease for the period of up to 90 years. The amount of rent for the offered land could not be lower than €2.06 per square meter per year, while for the maritime zone it had to be at least €1.77 per square meter per year. One of the offers arrived from CDC International Corporation. The offer was submitted by Maja Djurovic from Podgorica, who had the power of attorney certified by a notary and who acted on behalf of the legal representative and director of the company Khalil Boutros Al Sholy. The offer coincides with the required minimum starting price for the sale or lease of the land in the pristine bay and its hinterland to the penny.
Otherwise, the official documents of Montenegro (Special Purpose Spatial Plan for the Coastal Area – PPPNOP) recognize Buljarica as an area with numerous conflicts between the need to protect the space because of its values and the intent to valorize it through urbanization. Thus, Buljarica is among the protected beaches on the Montenegrin coast in the plans, while the controversial draft master plan envisages digging a channel and a complete modification of the coastline on the site.
In the PPPNOP, Buljarica is defined as a natural monument, but also as a valuable EMERALD area in which there are ecologically important habitats and species. Buljarica is recognized as an important ornithological habitat that meets the BirdLife International criteria, just like the one on the site of Ulcinj Saltworks.
As for the projected capacity to be built, the existing planning documentation does not define detailed guidelines for housing or residential construction. When it comes to hotel accommodation, however, PPPNOP defines that 13,680 hotel beds will be built in the area of Buljarica. On the other hand, according to the draft master plan drawn up by CDCIC, this figure is several times higher – 52,582 hotel beds.
Another fact that shows how unrealistic the offer of the “strategic investor” is refers to the planned marina in the new settlement in Buljarica. The master-plan envisages the construction of a 500-berth marina, while the official plan provides guidance for the construction of the marina of maximum 100 berths.
Also, the spatial plan defines the implementation of the so-called “Coastal setback” when it comes to new construction on the coast, or a ban to build within hundred meters from the coastline. The plan envisages that for an undeveloped area, such as Buljarica, this criterion be fully implemented in order to protect the coastline. On the other hand, the master plan that was submitted to the Government of Montenegro fully negates this requirement. Moreover, due to the planned system of channels, it is threatening to completely devastate the coastline in Buljarica.
Although the greater part of the offer of the government’s Cayman partners for Buljarica is still under wraps, this document quite explains why the Montenegrin government persistently refuses to publicly disclose the details and plans for the construction at the site. There is little room left for doubting that the massive urbanization of Buljarica is being prepared and it will not only burden the existing infrastructure, but also significantly devastate this valuable natural monument.
Tender for the sale of the land they do not own
On 22 July, because of tendering for Buljarica, MANS filed with the Special State Prosecutor’s Office the complaint against 29 persons, members of the Council for Privatization and Capital Projects and Tender Commission, including the President and Vice President of the Council Milo Djukanovic and Vujica Lazovic. The complaint, on which the State Prosecutor’s Office has not made any decisions yet, points out that they committed the criminal offense of abuse of office and fraud when making the request for tender for the valorization of Buljarica.
MANS believes that Djukanovic and his associates unlawfully, exceeding official authority, launched the tender for Buljarica, as a substantial part of the property that is the subject of the tender is privately owned. Thus, the government directly impinges upon the right to inviolability of private property guaranteed by the Constitution. MANS has proved that a significant part of the property that is the subject of the tender, is already encumbered. It means that a part of the plots is under litigation, mortgages, while some of them the state has leased to third parties for a concession fee and a number is either under forests or in the coastal zone.
“The government has illegally announced the sale of asset of great value that is privately owned or is encumbered, not providing pre-emptive rights that co-owners have according to law, placing no public interest in the proceedings, nor compensation that would be paid to owners. Carrying out the transaction, co-owners of the property that is to be sold or leased would suffer material damage and their basic human right to peaceful enjoyment of property would be seriously violated,” says the complaint. MANS has further said that such tender misled potential investors to believe that that they had been offered indisputable assets solely owned by the state, which could later lead to new disputes and claims for compensation from the business partners.
Opposition claims that the work is being rigged for local tycoons
The legal representative of the Tender Commission, lawyer Nikola Martinovic, pointed at the problematic aspects of the offer for Buljarica made by the CDCIC, but nevertheless, the Commission concluded that the offer was correct. The attempt to adopt the report of the Tender Commission on the electronic session of the Privatization Council has not passed so far, because a part of the council members from the opposition did not accept it. The intention of the government to sell Buljarica in this way was criticized by most of the members of the opposition and the public on the coast as well. The SDP, which until recently was a partner of the DPS in the government, called this business the “ultimate plunder”, which according to them, is being preparing to Montenegro. Moreover, the SDP further claims there are no foreign investors behind the whole business- Those are only “borrowed names” under which local tycoons are attempting to bring back to the country their dirty money earned through shady deals in the nineties and washed in the meanwhile. The SDP has requested the government, though without any success, to declassify the process of selling Buljarica, which was classified back in July 2014.
“The current economic policy of the DPS is best represented through the intention to sell rarely preserved area of Buljarica to former officials of the Ministry of Unsustainable Development, at the price of €22 per square meter. In layman’s terms, a square meter there costs as much as two kilos of vacuum packed ham in any store. It is not the development or an investment that will benefit all citizens. Montenegro should not be a place where investors will come from the offshore destinations – it is contrary to the values of the EU and NATO,” said the Minister of Finance Rasko Konjevic (SDP).
Being put under pressure from the opposition, NGOs and a part of citizens who even announced a protest in front of the local parliament, the President of the Municipality of Budva Srdja Popovic in mid-September, withdrew from the agenda of the session of the local parliament the draft decision that Budva transfer the right to dispose of the vast municipal property in Buljarica to the Privatization Council. The Budva committee of the Democrats then said that Popovic and the DPS branch in Budva intended to “treat the “the first family” to 5.5 million sqm of land.” Despite the fact that after the local elections held on 16 October, the DPS, which won 12 seats in the local parliament, remained in the minority in Budva and thet the new government is likely to be formed by the current opposition parties, Milo Djukanovic again convincingly triumphed at the polls in Buljarica, where he was voted by almost every other resident of that part of the municipality.
The buyer is a former government official, Gvozdenovic does not find it controversial
Maja Djurovic from Podgorica, who submitted an over €100 million worth offer to purchase and rent five million square meters of land in Buljarica on behalf of CDCIC, until recently, was the officer of the Ministry of Sustainable Development and Tourism (MORT). She left the ministry in 2014, at the same time when CDIC, due to the project in Buljarica, founded the company “Buljarica Bay” with its headquarters in Podgorica. Djurovic, who dealt with “the implementation and monitoring of investment flows in tourism, tourist valorization of protected natural monuments and valuation of economic benefits, as well as providing expert opinions for urban development plans in the Strategy of development of Montenegrin tourism” while working with the MORT, according to the registration records, was registered in 2014 as the executive Director of “Buljarica Bay”. She is occupying this position at the moment.
She did not answer journalists’ questions regarding her involvement in “Buljarica Bay”, while the MORT reacted by saying that by emphasizing this fact, “media want to sensationally put the Minister Branimir Gvozdenovic in a negative context.”
“Neither the minister nor the MORT have legal basis or right to influence the selection of further activities of their employees. Therefore, emphasizing these facts, except for the intention to bring the minister into relation with the work you find suspicious, has no grounds in a conflict of interest nor in the malfeasance of office,” claims the MORT.
Locals outraged at the property pillage
The Administrative Court, meanwhile, rejected the lawsuit filed in the middle of June by a group of citizens “Nase Ognjiste”, together with the owners of the land in Buljarica, a part of the members of the local parliaments in Budva and Bar, “Matica Boke”, Environmental Movement “OZON” and NGO “Nasa Akcija”. They sought to annul the government’s tender for Buljarica because “it constitutes an illegal public offer to buy someone else’s private property.” The plaintiffs alleged that the government was selling Buljarica contrary to the current planning documents, the Forest Law, the Law on Environmental Protection, while additionally violating a series of national laws and by-laws, the Constitution, and by applying the so-called “Land grabbing” practice, contrary to the European Convention on Human Rights.
They found that the area listed as a subject of the sale, instead of around 4.8 million sqm, is actually around 18 million sqm, which is why the starting price is rather 6€/sqm than the initially shown 22€/sqm. They stressed that by leasing the beach and around 600,000 sqm of the sea for 90 years, the jurisdiction of the Parliament of Montenegro had been completely bypassed. They also added that the public interest over private property in this complex had never been declared, neither the expropriation had been conducted to enable the state to carry out such sale.
The representative of the group “Nase Ognjiste” Bosko Carmak called the tender procedure the extension of the legal violence of the government over the shoremen – land owners in Buljarica, and invited members of the Tender Commission of the Privatization Council and the mayor Srdja Popovic to resign and “to distance themselves from the investment policy led by Milo Djukanovic, which demeans strategic national interests.” Carmak further said that “it is evident from the very outset that the case of Buljarice is a hidden agreement between the prime minister Milo Djukanovic and his offshore friends.”
Dejan Milovac
Sinisa Lukovic
