30.03.2010.

Building of 5000 flats to start in August

Defence Minister Dragan Šutanovac, Minister of Environment and Spatial Planning Oliver Dulic and Director of the Building Directorate of Serbia Dragan Grujic visited today the military barracks “Stepa Stepanovic” in Vozdovac where building of about 5000 flats is to begin in August.

Minister Šutanovac said that 42 hectares of land will be ceded to the Building Directorate of Serbia, and that the Ministry of Defence and the Serbian Armed Forces will obtain in exchange 21 percent of built housing facilities. Price of a square meter on that location will amount to less than 1,290 euros per square meter, and the monthly instalment, considering the subsidies for the purchase of housing, should be less than the average rent.

The Armed Forces, as Minister Šutanovac said, will soon get a certain number of flats in various parts of Serbia, and by the end of the year 500 flats owned by the Building Directorate will be transferred into the ownership of the Ministry of Defence, and members of the SAF. According to the Minister of Defence, the Armed Forces will obtain about 52,500 square meters, which according to the projected price will cost about 75 million euros.

Šutanovac said that the MoD will keep a certain number of flats in Vozdovac, while the rest will be exchanged for housing in other cities as required. He expects that a large number of the Armed Forces members will apply for buying the flats at the location of the barracks “Stepa Stepanovi?”, where there have been no SAF unit since 2007, at subsidized mortgage loans.

The Minister pointed out that this is the first project of that kind, and that the MoD has never received 21 percent of housing in return for a given property. Šutanovac therefore thanked Minister Dulic and Mr Grujic.

He said that there was a wish to expand this business to cities like Novi Sad and Niš, but also to other places in Serbia where there are units of the Serbian Armed Forces and the need for residential care.

Šutanovac said that the idea of the project came from the Ministry of Environment and Spatial Planning, and that the Construction Directorate is expected to put this into operation.

Minister Dulic said that the housing construction in Vozdovac will be the biggest project of the Government's subsidising the project funding, and that it is the biggest construction enterprise of the kind in the history of Serbia, because, he said, never before there has been built so much housing on the site such as military barracks “Stepa Stepanovi?”.

This, according to Duli?, will be the Government’a response to the crisis that affected the construction industry and the new opportunity for the citizens to obtain shelter under favourable conditions. The project should engage not only building companies but also other companies engaged in similar activities. Dulic said that his ministry undertakes to obtain all necessary documentation and permits so that the building can start in August this year.

According to Dragan Grujic, the value of the construction work will be around 220 million euros. Housing will be built to the highest standards of energy efficiency and functionality, and the flats will range between 30 and 70 square meters. The works would engage about 30,000 employees, he said.