In the day to day contacts of the Secretariat for Town Planning of the City of Belgrade with the investors, their opponents, professional and civilian community (public, municipal, town and republic administration, mutual distrust of the presented arguments in the work can be noticed. The published Procedures of the work with the clients and competent authorities in the conditions of the undeveloped public quality of the work of the local administration, have proved to be one of the important conditions for better mutual understanding and for further promotion of the administration work.

Social context – competence of the local administration:

Migration processes resulting from the disintegration of the former Yugoslavia, wars, economic-social crisis have left scars on the city map as well.

Belgrade comprises 16 municipalities . Six suburban municipalities have independence (except as regards work out of the General Plan). Ten central city municipalities of unequal size, degree of construction and development, morphology and topology of the settlements, do not have a crucial influence upon the process of town planning. The Municipalities and the City issue the licenses for construction, as per the town planning documentation prepared by the Secretariat for Town Planning and Town Planning Bureau

In the property-legal sense, the construction land is government-owned. It is allotted by the city or by the Municipality, depending on the purpose of use and size of the future structure. The adoption of the plan is carried out through the City Assembly .

Procedure of issuing the licenses:

It has been noted that there is a procedure which is not in conformity with the social economic conditions. The system of work was laid in such way that it did not coincide with the requirements of the citizens, investors, users of the surrounding area, nor with the requirements of the profession. However, carrying out of such procedure on the local level is formally and legally lawful, still it is not satisfactory for the work and public relations.

Out of such paradoxical situation the realization in the space does not cause anyone’s satisfaction, and the procedures prove to be a constant and their own goal. There comes to the conflict between the City and the municipalities, which causes still greater confusion. That creates discontent with the citizens and investors and suspicions as regards the intentions and procedures of those administrations.

Structure of the requirements and scope of work:

At the times of the competence of the Municipalities, since 1992, the majority of licenses have been issued to large civil engineering companies. The construction was financed from the common funds (approximately 20000 apartment annually).

The procedure was respected, even though there was some sporadic illegal construction. The number of requests was quite smaller (work!). The planning documentation was subjected to the requirements of the large investors. In smaller number of cases there appear individual investors.

At the beginning of the 1990, with the developing crisis, crash of the system of present financing, the structure of the requests changed drastically.

There appear extra-institutional capital. So that the investors are not credited through the exhausted banks. There came to mass atrophy of all streams of work. It was rarely that the license was required prior to the legal construction; most frequently because of: sale of the building, threat of pulling down, the individual interest was dominant, (reconstruction of the attics, basements, laundry rooms, corridors, construction of smaller houses or business premises). Public structures and areas were very rarely built.

The absurdity of the consequences of the illegal construction and procedure are such that as per the average of issuing 2000 town planning licenses annually, it would take approximately 50 years for legalization of all illegally constructed structures in the last decade.

A banner has been published with textual and graphic enclosures. The banner explains and directs the client towards competent authorities, explains steps in the work, scope of necessary documentation. In the form of a brochure the material was copied and distributed to the parties free of charge. The forms for submitting the requests were made and distributed. The parties had the opportunity to get informed about the course of the work. Unfortunately, the information and procedure presently existent, have not encouraged them.

The new concept of action within the service has been formed; the instruction for work with the clients has been prepared. The co-operation with the municipalities has been achieved in all stages of work (which has not been the case up till then). The Ministry, Municipal administration and municipalities have been made familiar with this material:

• the Municipal services have been included in the procedure of settling the disputable locations
• All plans have been analyzed and the information on the degree of their possibility to be carried out has been prepared (650 plans)
• The City Assembly, through the executive boards, has been included in the adoption of the solutions which have corrected the obsolete planning solutions.
• The adoption of the plans in the City Assembly has been expedited instead of the three the procedures has been reduced to only two sessions).
• Great attention is paid to exercising of public insight into the planning solutions

See detail

BIBLIOGRAPHY

1. International Manual of Planning Practice, Edition 1992, ISoCaRP, 1995, IsoCaRP
2. Information accompanying the partie’s requirements submitted to the Town Planning Secretariat, Authors: Branislav Popovic, B.Sc.Arch; Jozef Stanglicki, B.Sc.Arch, with associates, (Town Planning Saloon, 200, Nis)
3. Guests and Aliens, Saskia SASSEN, The NEWPRESS, New York 1999
4. Planner’s Response to the Cultural problems Caused by Migration, IsoCaRP, 32^nd Congress 1996

Authors: Branislav Popovic, B.Sc.Arch, Svetlana Dimitrijevic

5. Report on the Work of the Secretariat for Town Planning of the City Administration Competent for the Town Planning Affairs for the period 1997-1999 (survey since 1991), Assembly of the City of Belgrade, Branislav Popovic, Secretary of the Secretariat for Town Planning.
6. Town Planning and Politics. School of Architecture of the University of Belgrade, 1995, Editor: dr. Nada Lazarevic
7. Strategy of Town Planning in the Conditions of Uncertainty, School of Architecture of the University of Belgrade, 1996, editor dr. Nada Lazarevic-Bajes, mr. Miodrag Ralevic