29 Oct 2010 / 15:11
Investors plan to transform the untouched Cape Arza at the entrance of Boka Kotorska Bay in Montenegro into a concrete tourism resort, provoking an outcry from the civil society sector.
Investors plan to transform the untouched Cape Arza at the entrance of Boka Kotorska Bay in Montenegro into a concrete tourism resort, provoking an outcry from the civil society sector.
Nela Lazarevic
Unless the government's urbanism study due in December includes restrictions, RCG Invest, a joint venture between Budva-based Tradeunique's owner Marko Latinovic and his Russian investment partners, will transform the 19th century Austro-Hungarian fortress Arza, currently surrounded only by sea and vegetation, into the focal point of a 45,000 square metre concrete tourist residence block.
While the investors have enthusiastically announced that the project will shine a new light on Montenegro's entire tourism offer, local architects and members of the civil society sector are shocked by the amount of concrete they pour into what is now the unspoiled natural habitat of the fortress.
Unless the government's urbanism study due in December includes restrictions, RCG Invest, a joint venture between Budva-based Tradeunique's owner Marko Latinovic and his Russian investment partners, will transform the 19th century Austro-Hungarian fortress Arza, currently surrounded only by sea and vegetation, into the focal point of a 45,000 square metre concrete tourist residence block.
While the investors have enthusiastically announced that the project will shine a new light on Montenegro's entire tourism offer, local architects and members of the civil society sector are shocked by the amount of concrete they pour into what is now the unspoiled natural habitat of the fortress.
Experts claim that the vegetation surrounding the fortress is an integral part of the structure, and that therefore there should be no construction in its immediate proximity.
"If this project is to be approved, Arza will be completely "eaten up" by concrete, and the wider area around it will lose its current natural, cultural and historical value," architect and cultural heritage coordinator at the Kotor-based NGO Expeditio, Sandra Kapetanovic, told Balkan Insight.
RCG Invest bought the Arza fortress and 10 hectares (100,000 square metres) of surrounding land in 2005 from the Fund for the Reform of the Serbia and Montenegro Military, which sold it as military surplus.
At the moment of purchase, no urbanization plan had ever been made for Arza, so the study due in December will show for the first time if the investors' plans match the government's position.
Montenegro's Urbanisation and Environmental Protection Ministry ignored dozens of calls and emails Balkan Insight sent over the past month asking about their position regarding the investors' plans.
Tradeunique, one of the investment partners, told Balkan Insight that the government is too restrictive and hasn't moved fast enough to approve the project.
"It is not easy to find partners to invest large sums of money with these kind of barriers," Tradeunique director Goran Bojanic complained.
If the government approves the plan, RCG Invest intends to start construction by the end of 2011, while the project should be finished by 2015 at the latest. Bojanic told Balkan Insight that it would cost at least 150 million euros.
Like many Montenegrin fortresses, Arza is not on the country's official list of protected monuments, which is why it was possible to sell the structure in the first place.
Montenegro's Agency for the Protection of Monuments officially safeguards only a small part of the country's historic buildings, while all the rest have been listed as "potential monuments" for years.
Local and international experts seem to agree that all the fortresses from Boka Kotorska area should be officially protected as important cultural heritage.
"I would like to see all the Austro-Hungarian fortresses in Boka Kotorska immediately protected by the authorities," Valker Pachauer, a lecturer at the University of Graz and a specialist who specialises in Montenegrin fortifications, told Balkan Insight, explaining that they are extremely valuable parts of the cultural heritage of both Montenegro and Austria.
Ruzica Ivanovic of the Regional Agency for the Protection of Monuments in Kotor said that monuments that are not on the official list still enjoy some safeguards. The Agency has expressed its concerns regarding the volume andheight of the planned buildings at Arza.
"The construction should be downsized to a level that will not rival the fortifications," Ivanovic wrote to the government several months ago.
Asked about the extent to which the government considers the advice of the regional agency, Ivanovic responded that the fact that the location study has undergone several changes and is still not finished "speaks for itself".
balkan insight
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