Every year, the Municipality of Plovdiv collects tens of thousands of BGN from construction contractors in order to issue them the cherished construction permit. The tariff for it was last raised at the end of 2020 from BGN 1 to BGN 5 per square meter by decision of the Municipal Council.
“The question is what do we get for the money that is taken from us. There is no infrastructure either in terms of design or construction. The documents that are approved are also moving slowly,” complained businessmen from the construction industry.
At the same time, an increase in the prices of administrative services is being prepared on the grounds that the construction boom is not continuing, and the money in the local treasury is not enough to catch up with private investments with appropriate infrastructure.
“The investor is put in a situation of building the streets around his site himself and then donating them to the Municipality. Fact!”, entrepreneurs complain to “Maritsa”. In practice, the city administration focuses on the nodal boulevards and streets and works mainly on their maintenance and rehabilitation, and there is never enough money for the new neighborhoods.
Vladimir Temelkov, the deputy mayor for digitization, European projects and business development, is also aware of the case. “We are currently analyzing the prices of building permit fees. A new increase is coming, but at the same time we realize that when you want to raise the price of a service, you have to provide something of much higher quality – here we are talking about infrastructure and construction conditions,” commented Vladimir Temelkov recently to “Maritsa”.
We remind you that in Plovdiv entrepreneurs pay one of the lowest prices for building permits, given that the city is often at the top of the charts for new construction. The municipality of Burgas charges BGN 7 per sq.m., in Varna the prices are between BGN 1.35 and BGN 8.10, depending on the type of building, and in Sofia – between BGN 5 and BGN 14 depending on the area of construction.
A private track in “South” swallowed a million
Many builders in Plovdiv have already had to deal with the infrastructure around the new sites. The entrepreneur Ilko Rozhevski invested over BGN 1 million to build a brand new route that passes by his “South Park” complex and connects the “Belomorski” district with “Al. Stamboliyski”. “The municipality puts us in this situation – we cannot get the permits for the use of the complex without being “tied” to the neighbors with built infrastructure. We build and sell the homes, so we also think about our future residents – they have no way of paying industrial electricity and water. We can’t wait for the Municipality to build the road,” commented the entrepreneur for “Maritsa”. Then he explained that there was an old road in that place.
They built the new route on top of it, with part of the money going to the two cul-de-sacs next to their property. Separately, the builders maintain the road between the railway lines and the “Belomorski” turnpike. Rozhevski added that they were still lucky and completed the route in a part that is only municipal. This saved them the headaches of expropriating private property.
Many entrepreneurs point out that the Municipality is aware in which areas new construction is strongest. That is why it is appropriate to plan some funds at least a year ahead and think about building the infrastructure.
“At the moment, there is a lot of interest in the land in Yuzhen, but the problem remains, and that is the lack of already built infrastructure. And this is task #1 for the Municipality, which must first build the relevant streets – they are municipal objects and the obligation is theirs”, claims the investor Metodi Rashkov, head of a construction company that develops several large-scale projects in the city. He gives the example of the new neighborhood behind the “Plovdiv” mall. The grounds there became extremely attractive, but in them it was first the infrastructure is built and they have everything they need. “That’s how the investor comes and starts building,” emphasizes Rashkov.
