The Cadastral Office removed the status of protected cultural property from the ruined buildings of the General Staff, Barracks of the 7th Regiment, and the Old General Staff building in Belgrade, which will become part of the “Trump Towers” residential and hotel complex, according to the project contracted by the President of Serbia Aleksandar Vučić with the son-in-law of US President Donald Trump.
The Real Estate Cadastral Office Savski venac issued a decision on November 14 to allow the deletion of the entry noting the status of a cultural property from both the Barracks of the 7th Regiment and the Old General Staff building, even though they are about 100 years old, but will become part of the “Trump Towers” complex.
The Republic Geodetic Authority – Real Estate Cadastral Office Savski venac, “based on the Rulebook on Internal Organization and Systematization of Workplaces in the Republic Geodetic Authority, resolving the request for implementing changes in the real estate cadastre submitted by the Ministry of Defence, allowed the deletion of the note on the status of a cultural property,” the institution’s decision stated.
“I don’t know if by removing the protection from these plots, they abolished the Law on Cultural Heritage via the Cadastre. What is happening is completely unbelievable,” said researcher conservator, associate at the Republic Institute for the Protection of Cultural Monuments, Estela Radonjić Živkov.
The plot with the Barracks of the 7th Regiment and the Old General Staff building is within the spatial-cultural historical unit of Kneza Miloša Street and is also under protection, she said.
According to the Law on Cultural Heritage, as per her words, the republic and city institutes for the protection of cultural monuments are authorized to submit a request for the removal of the status of a cultural property, and if decided, a request to the Cadastre for the removal of that status follows, but this procedure was not respected; instead, it is being done by reverse procedure.
No one from the Republic Institute, as she stated, submitted that request, but the Republic Geodetic Authority, based on the lex specialis law adopted because of the “Trump Towers” project, initiated the procedure.
Article 9 of the Law on Special Procedures for the Realization of the Revitalization and Development Project of the Location in Belgrade between the streets Kneza Miloša, Masarikova, Birčanonova, and Resavska states that “The Republic Geodetic Authority and the competent central institution for the protection and preservation of cultural heritage shall, based on this law, carry out the deletion of objects at the location from the registers they maintain within 15 days from the date of entry into force of this law.”
Radonjić Živkov pointed out that the process of removing the status of a cultural property was initiated at the Republic Institute for the Protection of Cultural Monuments three days ago, i.e., there is a note that the deletion of the entry regarding it has been initiated.
“They skipped the Law on Cultural Heritage and the competent institution; they did not wait for it to be deleted from the Institute’s register first, but instead deleted it from the Cadastre,” she said.
She stated that the acting director of the Republic Institute for the Protection of Cultural Monuments, Goran Vasić, against whom criminal proceedings are being conducted before the Prosecutor’s Office for Organized Crime for an earlier attempt to remove the protection status of a cultural monument from the damaged General Staff buildings, was banned from approaching witnesses, i.e., employees of the Institute, which is why he did not work for some time, but after the expiration of that measure, which was lifted by the court for the previous procedure, he is working again.
There is, as she said, another problem because Vasić’s acting status expired in the middle of this year, and he now has no status in the Institute.
“As far as we know, when he was detained and was not working, he was receiving a salary. At that time, we requested instructions from the Ministry of Culture, which had proposed him for director, but they did not react, nor did they respond to the request for his dismissal,” said Radonjić Živkov.
The procedure for removing the status of a cultural property is regulated by the Law and the Institute’s rulebooks, as she stated, and it is difficult to say what to do now because “this has never happened.”
“We expect Vasić to initiate the procedure for removing the status of a cultural property from the complex of buildings and the plot intended for ‘Trump Towers’ so that the protection can also be removed from the Institute’s register,” said Radonjić Živkov.
When asked if the employees see Vasić at work, she said they do and that he probably feels like a winner now.
“With this decision by the RGA, the Law on Cultural Heritage has been completely overridden. In principle, the hands of us employees who are against the removal of protection on the plots intended for ‘Trump Towers’ are tied,” said Radonjić Živkov.
Due to the “Trump Towers” project, the MPs of the ruling coalition in the Serbian Parliament adopted a lex specialis law “tailored” to that project under an urgent procedure on November 7.
At the last moment during the adoption, the opposition pointed out that the buildings and plots in the Cadastre are protected because they have the status of cultural monuments, after which the ruling coalition adopted an amendment which introduced into the law that “the decision on declaring the General Staff buildings of the Army of Serbia and Montenegro and the Ministry of Defence in Belgrade as a cultural monument is declared null and void, and the objects at the location are considered not to have acquired the status, nor do they have the status of a cultural property.”
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Source: Danas, Photo: ATA Images