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BANJALUKA – Residents of the Centar-Aleja settlement gathered tonight with their children in the so-called ” trgić ” located across the street from SD “Borik” and sent a clear message to the municipality and members of the Banjaluka City Council that the school should not be removed from the supervision plan.
“The future of children is not for sale”, “Uncles from the city, do not remove our school and the only playground”, “We want what was planned and promised: a school and a sports field. No new construction!”, “Banjaluka lacks: 50 kindergartens, 5 schools; Banjaluka has a surplus: more than 10,000 apartments, and apartments are being built on the sites of schools and kindergartens”, “A school can be built from concrete embedded in “5 new parks”!”, these are some of the slogans of this peaceful rally.
As they say, they oppose the amendments to the regulatory plan, which delete the school and significantly reduce kindergarten facilities, and foresee the construction of a 4-storey building with about 250 residential units.
Aleksandar Jokić, a resident of the Centar-Aleja settlement, reminded that this amendment to the control plan contradicts the draft urban plan, which foresaw the construction of a school and kindergarten in the settlement, as well as the effective spatial plan, which foresaw the construction of a school.
“Moreover, this is the last vacant lot, and according to the Spatial Planning and Construction Act, it is illegal to modify the controlling plan. The public interest must be taken into account when modifying the RP, and no one has explained why the school is suddenly not in the public interest, but the building is. Which member of the public is more interested in having a building here instead of a school? On what basis is this determined?” Jokic said.
He noted that the tenants were not asking for the school to start construction immediately, but rather for it to not be removed from the regulatory plan.
Currently, a school might be built in one or three years, whereas if the RP is changed as Jokic stressed, the school will never be built!
The tenants made it clear: “We don’t ask for any changes, we ask that the RP not be touched, that the future of the settlement and this part of the city not be destroyed for personal gain”. This is what Jokic said publicly.
Dragan Gazdić, a resident of the Centar-Aleja settlement, claimed to be a parent of a school-age child attending the “Branko Chopić” primary school.
He drew attention to the problem of overcrowding at the school, where the number of pupils had increased by 196 over the past nine years, from 732 to 928.
“Our children attend classes in three shifts, and by the second shift they are tired and cannot keep up with the lessons. This is a problem mentioned by the teachers. Materially, they do not have more than what they have, because the halls are not designed for so many children,” Gazdiqi reminded.
He also announced the next steps for tenants to fight for their children’s rights, which is to organize a petition to demand the construction of a school and a kindergarten on the site where they were drawn, under a valid regulatory plan.
The tenants of the Centar-Aleja settlement have received support from many citizens from other settlements, mainly from parts of the city that also foresee changes in the regulatory plan, namely the construction of multi-storey buildings, but to which citizens are opposed. Many activists have also provided support.
The mayor of Banjaluka convened a regular meeting of the Banjaluka City Council on August 14, and the decision on amending the part of the Center-Aleja regulatory plan was presented on the agenda. With this change, the school was deleted, kindergarten facilities were reduced, and a building with about 250 residential units was drawn on the site.
The move follows a large number of written submissions from tenants and active participation in public debate, with councillors briefed on the issue in detail and warned that they have an obligation to represent the interests of citizens rather than individuals.
The Centar-Aleja settlement is home to about 2,500 people, mostly young couples with pre-school and school-age children.
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