How many construction permits were issued in the capital this year?

While in terms of the third programme to facilitate procedures for legalisation of facilities without permission, the director of the Urbanism Directorate in Pristina municipality, Ardian Oluri, said 533 residential objects have been legalised since August 2019.

We had a slight drop in the number of issued permits in 2020, so we had 151 construction permits issued, compared to 182 the previous year, and we issued 815 thousand feet compared to 11,000 from the previous year. We've been waiting for a huge drop because of our pandemic, it's been a good surprise because we haven't been falling as long as we've waited. This year from January to now we have issued 14 construction permits. 7 in the first and 7th category of the second category, it seems very promising this year and we hope that we will still have requests as construction is important industry in our economy and impacts employment and growth of economics”, he said.

On the other hand, Oluri says that the third programme for facilitating procedures for legalising facilities without permission is resulting in success, as there have been more requests from citizens this time to submit to legal procedures.

The new law that is in effect has now simplified the procedure much, especially for the first category. Procedures are simple are required for property documents, application forms, a statement by the owner that assumes the safety responsibility of the object and geodical recording. So the number of documents required is very small, and the procedure has been very simplified, besides it's also lowering costs. It means that the first category is only 1 euro squared, for the second category is slightly more expensive, is 2 euro sq m, and the documents required are just a little more than the first category, besides the documents that I just mentioned, the second category also require reports on each phase of individual field engineers. A statistical engineer's report is required that the statue meets the terms of the object, as well as the electrical structure, so for each part, an engineering report is required that the object fulfills the conditions for legalisation”, he said.

“This is the third program to take place in the Pristina municipality, so initially legalising non-licensed objects had started in 2010 with a municipal regulation, then the Law for Legalisation of programme objects starting in 2014 until 2016, and now this is the third program, which started in August 2019. I consider it successful compared to two preliminary programs, so since the two preliminary programs that have been developed for years have only been legalized by about 200 objects, we have been able to achieve 533 objects during this program since August of 2019. According to one estimate, approximately 70m euros have been released into financial capital -- the estimated value of these objects -- is estimated to be approximately 70m euros -- financial value that could be used in access to financial capital. So compared with programs and considering that we have been in pandemic time, I'm considering that it has been quite successful so far, but I hope that the requirements will increase and we will increase the intensity of the work, the number of non-licensive objects in the Pristina municipality is estimated to be around 46 thousand construction”, Oluri said.

Under the new law on illegal construction in Kosovo, only items initiated prior to September 5, 2018 are handled. While, pre- 2004 construction facilities are free of tax fees.

The application limit is by September of this year, this deadline may be extended to the Government's decision for another year, this is a possible circumstance, but we don't know if it happens. This is a very important deadline since the treatment of the object takes place even after this deadline is passed, but if it doesn't apply within this deadline, it entered the list of debacle”, Oluri said.

However, it is considered that it is favored by persons who have built without permission, since the cost is much lower than for those who have submitted to legal procedures. According to Olur, this is a bitter and unjust reality, but that, as he put it, cannot be addressed.