Renewables and Environmental Regulatory Institute would like to address the media and the interested public regarding the statements media reported yesterday, given by some of the most prominent Belgrade city officials, MPs and the Public Company “Skijališta Srbije”, an investor in the Ušće-Kalemegdan cable car construction project.
In this regard, RERI would like to inform the interested public and the media of the following:
- Allegations that the construction permit annulment, which RERI calls for, does not pertain to the cable car construction – are unfounded
In fact, the construction permit RERI sought to be rescinded as illegal states its purpose as to allow ‘the performance of preparatory works for the construction of the cable car station at Kalemegdan’. Said construction permit refers to location conditions that have been obtained for the cable car construction project and that represents a document issued prior to the construction permit for a specific structure (project), pursuant to the Law on Planning and Construction.
- Preparatory works are an integral part of the construction process
Preparatory works performed on the specific site are works preceding the building construction and as such, pursuant to the provisions of the Law on Planning and Construction, are an integral part of the construction process the construction permit is issued for. It means that a construction permit was necessary for the works performed so far, including the felling of trees on the abovementioned parcel, which, according to publicly available information, was not the case.
- The construction permit document never states any archaeological examinations as its purpose
A construction permit is a publicly available document that can be accessed at the Business Registers Agency web site, in its section for building permits issued in a joint procedure. RERI encloses the first page of the permit here, the dispositive of which clearly suggests what type of works it referred to. The facts that archaeological examination has not been adequately conducted and that project’s environmental impact remained undefined, are the reasons RERI filed a lawsuit before the Administrative Court, requesting that the said construction permit be revoked.
RERI hereby appeals to the authorities and institutions to strictly comply with the regulations and to interpret them correctly, without attempting to manipulate their meaning. The Institute also calls on all parties involved to stop politicizing the matter which is of the utmost interest for all residents of Belgrade, as well as all citizens of Serbia and its cultural heritage and to stop diverting public attention from the heart of the problem.
Renewables and Environmental Regulatory Institutepress release (in Serbian) is available here.
The first page of the building permit document is available here.