"Sofia continues to be a record holder for the number of issued building permits for another year." This was stated by the leader of "Save Sofia" Boris Bonev in the program "Bulgaria, Europe and the World in Focus" on Radio FOCUS, commenting on the controversial development in the capital's "Mladost" district.
According to him, the main problem is not so much the total volume of permitted construction in the capital, but its concentration in the same neighborhoods, where buildings appear one on top of the other and create a serious burden on the infrastructure.
"In the case of "Mladost" "We are talking about 65,000 square meters of developed built-up area in a place that is already heavily loaded," Bonev pointed out, adding that the transport and social infrastructure in the area has reached the limits of its capacity.
He also emphasized the problem with green spaces, emphasizing that in many of the new projects they are either missing or minimal and do not compensate for the real needs of the neighborhoods. "The lack of parks and green spaces makes the environment even more unsustainable," Bonev added, noting that in "Mladost" this is precisely one of the key deficits.
He also commented on the specific case of a 22-story building, emphasizing that a significant part of the terrain - about 92% - is municipal property. "The big problem here is that the municipality is becoming an accomplice in the redevelopment", he said, specifying that this allows the institutions to review the project.
Bonev explained that from "Save Sofia" have submitted a report to the Sofia Municipal Council with a proposal that the mayor of Sofia, Vasil Terziev, commission an official change to the detailed development plan so that the land can be designated as a park.
"We showed what a park in "Mladost" could look like, where there is a lack of sufficient green spaces anyway," he said, emphasizing that the proposal aims to create a sustainable solution for the area.
In the conversation, Bonev expanded on the topic, stating that similar problems with overdevelopment are also observed in other large cities such as Plovdiv and Varna.
He also commented on the organization's idea of transferring state-owned properties that are no longer needed to the municipalities to be used for new urban development solutions and compensation for private land in the inter-block spaces.
"This is a reasonable compromise that protects both the rights of the private owner and the public interest," Bonev also said, added that a similar model had already been applied in previous cases in "Mladost".
At the end of the conversation, he called for a more objective assessment of the city's governance, emphasizing that problems with infrastructure and construction require specific solutions, not political confrontations.