Cities Are Ready to Manage State Property

Cities want to manage state property located in their area – a request made by mayors to Ivan Paladina, the Minister of Spatial Planning, Construction and State Property, at the Lider conference panel 48 hours, which included Željko Turk, the mayor of Zaprešić, Marko Filipović, the mayor of Rijeka, Mato Franković, the mayor of Dubrovnik, and Dominik Živanović, the director of the public sector business at HPB, led by Nives Kopajtich Škrlec, the Association of Cities in Croatia, and Miodrag Šajatović, the editor-in-chief of Lider.

Mayors complained to the minister about the slow resolution of requests, lamented the activation of Article 77 of the law, which deprives them of property after a court rules in favor of the city, and insisted that these issues be resolved in the new law currently being prepared. However, the minister does not believe that all cities have the capacity to manage this property.

– Everyone should be included in the revenue distribution, but when it comes to the disposal of state property, the problem is also the capacity of cities and municipalities. The dynamics of our ministry is not satisfactory, but often representatives of municipalities and cities expect us to do their job because they are not legally prepared. We need to see which units have the capacity to take over that part of the work – said Paladina.

The mayor of Rijeka, Filipović, believes that state property would be managed more rationally and simply if it were given to local government. He explained this with the example of apartments, commercial space, and land. However, Mayor Franković is most troubled by the law on compensation for expropriated property.

– We cannot just say that the fault lies with the cities, perhaps only partially; the big problem lies in the ministry, but also in the law. When the city of Dubrovnik wins a case related to property, the State Attorney’s Office activates Article 77, and that property ceases to be city property. It can happen that we receive bills from the state for rent for something that is ours. Thus, we have lost a number of properties in Dubrovnik. We have a problem with a law that is outdated and needs to change Article 77 – said Franković, who is also troubled by the possibility that the state could hand over its property to counties for management, which would further complicate the situation.

Turk considers the preparation of the new law an evolution compared to the current state. He also opposed the minister’s opinion on the unpreparedness of cities.

– Today, in this hall, there are people who have signed projects worth billions of kuna; Zaprešić has projects worth over two billion kuna, and it is not true that we are unprepared. Our cities are, in that way, a responsible partner to the Croatian government. At a time when we have European money available and prepared projects, we need to employ several hundred people in the ministry who will resolve backlog cases – said Turk.

However, according to Paladina, the problems will soon be resolved by amending the law, digitalization, and increasing the ministry’s capacity through additional hiring, as several hundred people are planned to be employed in the department dealing with state property. But as for Article 77, that falls under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Justice. Nevertheless, while waiting for the new law to be passed and for the resolution of issues with state property in their area, cities can easily access funding for their projects through HPB, and there is also HBOR.