Duspara sues the Ministry of Construction for ‘illegal issuance’ of a usage permit to Lidl

The mayor of Slavonski Brod, Mirko Duspara, reported on Thursday that the City has filed a lawsuit against the Ministry of Construction and Spatial Planning at the Osijek Administrative Court due to what he described as the illegal issuance of usage permits for the Lidl shopping center and the reconstruction of the state road.

Mayor Duspara held a press conference today regarding what he claimed was the illegal issuance of a usage permit by the Ministry of Construction and Spatial Planning for the Lidl shopping center on Osječka Street and for the illegally reconstructed and expanded state road DC 423 next to that shopping center.

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The investor – the company “Rimc” submitted a request for a building permit for the construction of a store for food and non-food products to the Slavonski Brod Administrative Department for Construction on March 31 last year, and on April 28, that permit was issued. After the construction was completed, at the beginning of October last year, the investor also submitted a request for the issuance of a usage permit, the mayor said. At the investor’s request, he added, a technical inspection of the facility was conducted at the end of October.

Since three out of 16 members of the commission believed that the facility was not built in accordance with the building permit, the Administrative Department refused to issue the usage permit at the beginning of November, stating that the store was “not connected to the traffic infrastructure” according to the law.

As Mayor Duspara stated, during the process of issuing the usage permit, the investor attempted to present the completed reconstruction and expansion of the state road DC 423 on Osječka Street as an integral part of the works covered by the building permit for the construction of the commercial facility. This was not possible because it concerns a state road as a public good in general use, and according to the Roads Act, its reconstruction and expansion cannot be requested or carried out by either a natural or legal person, but exclusively by the Republic of Croatia, and that through Hrvatske ceste d.o.o., emphasized Mayor Duspara, adding that for this reason, the Administrative Department for Construction, Spatial Planning, and Environmental Protection neither had the right nor could issue the requested usage permit.

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The Ministry of Construction and Spatial Planning issued usage permits to the investor, and in this unprecedented procedure, as Duspara assessed, caused irreparable damage to Slavonski Brod, its citizens, and Croatia because the location for which the usage permit was issued is of traffic and strategic importance for the city, as evidenced in the General Urban Plan since it is planned to connect Osječka Street and the Eastern Link Road via a connecting road of the same importance.

Due to all of this, the City has filed a lawsuit against the Ministry at the Osijek Administrative Court to annul the illegal decision that allowed the use of the Lidl commercial facility and the illegally reconstructed and expanded state road DC 423, said Duspara.

The Ministry’s reference to a retroactively and unlawfully issued document on November 9, 2017, by which Hrvatske ceste issued to the investor “Rimc” d.o.o. a “Written consent for the purpose of proving legal interest in the procedure for obtaining a building permit for the construction of a connection for the store of food and non-food products and the reconstruction of the state road DC 423,” is just one of the crucial pieces of evidence that justifies the initiation of criminal proceedings in this case, assessed Duspara.

Institutions have neglected the spatial plan of the city and the county and abolished the possibility of constructing a connection between the Eastern Link Road and Osječka Street, which would open an area of 32 hectares for the construction of a business zone in Slavonski Brod. Who is against entrepreneurs in Slavonski Brod? Is it the city that stood in defense of the law of the Republic of Croatia or the ministry that made an unlawful decision?” asked Mayor Duspara, concluding that they filed a lawsuit with the Administrative Court for this reason. As he emphasized, if necessary, they will appeal to the Constitutional Court and the European Court in Strasbourg.