Present at a press conference on the problems faced by the citizens of Bucharest regarding the delivery of the heating agent, the General Mayor of the Capital Nicuşor Dan spoke about the illegality of the constructions. Without indicating a particular institution or person, the mayor said that although there is “huge corruption” in the construction area, there are no corrupt people.
He gave as an example the regional urban plans (PUZ) saying that the way it is built in Romania and in Bucharest is a matter of national security, and the corrupt should go to prison.
“The experience we are seeing now in Turkey tells us what I have been saying for a very long time: the way it is built in Romania and in Bucharest is a matter of national security. And, unfortunately, the institutions that should supervise the way it is built in Bucharest are not up to the goals they should have. I give only one example: the sector PUZs. Through the sector PUZs, the courts established, it was illegally allowed to build an additional 10 million square meters. And for two or three years, since they were approved, there has been no reaction from the state control institutions. This is the issue on which we must all bend. Without question, there is huge corruption in the construction area, without us being corrupt. I hope that the corrupt people in the real estate sector will go to prison before we have an earthquake and not after, as is happening in Turkey”, declared Nicusor Dan.
Targeted by the Mayor of the Capital, of course without being directly nominated, the State Construction Inspectorate (ISC), the institution that exercises state control of construction quality, preferred to remain silent. Until now, ISC representatives have not offered us any point of view.
Similarly, three of the six sector town halls contacted by G4Media.ro to give us a point of view, avoided commenting on the Mayor General’s statements.
Why are PUZs (Zonal Urban Plan) important and what is at stake
“The PUZ itself represents the regulation of the area, the policy of the area. An investment is made on their basis, it is built. We must learn to negotiate for the citizen and for the city, not just for one of them. There are green areas that you pass from green areas that you don’t have to build, to buildable areas, and many problems arise here. On the other hand, it must be taken into account that the city is evolving and there is a big problem here. How do you make it evolve, not to block things, but to develop them in a healthy way. The problem is that they want 20 floors in some low areas, with houses and things like that. That’s the big problem. They should say: it’s not possible here and there, but we have an alternative, look here”, Emil Ivănescu, president of the Order of Bucharest Architects, told G4Media.ro.
As for the real estate developers, their representatives claim that they do not feel targeted by Nicuşor Dan’s statements.
“I don’t think it’s good for a public authority that has the main responsibility in issuing authorizations, to talk about an entire industry, generalizing things in the context where the cases of those who don’t respect the law are very diminished and even very few recently. Most of the developers are very serious about the quality in construction”, Bogdan Ivan, Secretary General, Association of Real Estate Developers from Romania “Urbanis”, told TVR.
