The new resort must be built on 240 ha of land that is currently used for agriculture
Toma Belev, ex-director of Vitosha Nature Park, participates in a scheme for building a new seaside resort in the land area of Balgarevo village near Kavarna, shows an investigation of the daily newspaper Trud. To this end, the Municipal Council (MC) is attempting maneuvers to circumvent the legislation, also involving several members of the council lead by the chair Krasimir Krastev, member of the Order, Law and Justice party. The Story The new resort must be built on 240 ha of land that is currently used for agriculture. In order for the scheme to work, it is necessary to declare the land as urbanized territory, which can happen through the General Land Use Plan (GLUP) of Kavarna municipality. Currently the GLUP is in the process of preparation by the contractor, the National Center for Territorial Development (NCTD). Its representative, architect Ivan Dimchev, attends most of the meetings of MC-Kavarna. In June 2018, Dimchev announced that the project had received a negative assessment by the institutions due to non-compliance with the requirement to prevent construction on territories included in Complex Kaliakra protected area. The explanation of the architect suggests that the team of NCTD is facing an absurd situation: in Kavarna municipality there are five protected areas included in the network Natura 2000. In two of them, Complex Kaliakra and Kaliakra, there are 2500 regulated (authorized) properties and more than 95% of them are privately owned. Most of them are located in the settlement of Bozhurets that, since the 1980’s, has been considered urbanized territory and has an effective Specific Land Use Plan (SLUP). Therefore, any construction there is entirely legal. The locals have erected buildings and have been paying taxes for them for more than 30 years. Several years ago, however, their property was included in Natura 2000 and a number of restrictions were enforced. Practically the lawful owners are now unable to freely dispose of their land and buildings, as they may cause harm to a protected habitat. As Trud has mentioned on many occasions, in Bulgaria Natura 2000 was mapped by the non-governmental organizations from the coalition For Nature in Bulgaria during the period 2005 – 2007. For this “the greens” received 9 million BGN. The newspaper found proof that the “ecologists” had never set foot in the field and had plotted the protected areas at their desks in Sofia. The case in Kavarna municipality is yet another confirmation. If the “conservationists” had ever been in the region of Kavarna, they would have seen that they are including the urbanized territory Bozhurets in Natura 2000. Similarly, the military airport in Balchik and the Muslim cemetery of Topola village were also included in protected zones. As a consequence of this nonsense two years ago the owners of land in the protected zones in Kavarna municipality organized a protest that escalated in civil disobedience. Thus, the people managed to stop the public debate on the development of an Integrated Management Plan (IMP) for three of the protected territories: Complex Kaliakra, Kaliakra and Belite Skali. The preparation of the IMP was assigned by the Ministry of Environment and Water (MEW) to the Institute of Biodiversity and Ecosystem Research (IBER) at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences (BAS) to meet the requirement of the European Commission to have a Plan for each protected zone. Due to the public unrest the preparation of the IMP was stopped and the contract with IBER was cancelled. Two years after the protest this Integrated Plan provided grounds for the involvement of Toma Belev in the scheme for construction of a new resort. 
Tangled in interests Since several months ago the Municipal Council of Kavarna has been actively campaigning for the development of an IMP for the three protected zones. The investigation of Trud showed that the campaign was initiated by the Chair of the Council, Krasimir Krastev, who works with the Association of Parks in Bulgaria (APB), illegitimately headed by Toma Belev (this was confirmed by the Bulgarian Court). APB is a member of the coalition For Nature in Bulgaria. On the 10th of June, Krastev submitted a memo to the MC promoting several solutions that were voted at the meeting of the councilors today. The members of the MC exercised common sense and rejected the request. This however does not guarantee that the idea will not be slightly modified and then proposed again. What are the propositions? First, the MC shall request the MEW to assign the remaining work on the IMP for the three protected zones to the Municipality of Kavarna. Second, this task shall be assigned without a contest to the Association of Parks in Bulgaria, i.e. to Toma Belev, and shall be completed within a period of three months. One of the requirements for the Association of Parks is to develop a basis for the compensation of owners whose properties are in Natura 2000 and to relocate (move) the urbanization. What does this mean? The plots of the landowners located in protected zones must be bought-up, even though the currently urbanized area is indeed the settlement of Bozhurets and the locals have been paying property taxes for years. After Toma Belev finalizes the IMP, a recommendation will be made to establish an urbanized territory (where construction is allowed) on the agricultural land of Balgarevo village where sustainable tourism can be developed. The unofficial plan is to build the new resort on these 240 hectares of land. According to architect Ivan Dimchev’s calculations, if the whole area is used for the resort, it will be able to accommodate 30 000 people. Meanwhile Belev writes to the MC that APB supports the development of the land of Balgarevo whose population is a little bit more than 1100 people. This position of the “ecologist” contradicts the opinion he shares during his public appearances as a fierce opponent of the overdevelopment of the Black Sea coast. The memo itself raises a number of questions. The main one is whether Krasimir Krastev is aware of the fact that the contract for IMP preparation for the three protected zones was between the MEW and IBER, i.e. Kavarna Municipality was never a party in the agreement. This means that there is no legal way for the local government to instantly become a party, let alone to automatically assign a contractor for the finalization of the Integrated Management Plan. Therefore, the proposition of Krastev is circumventing the law. There is another fact of major importance that Trud’s investigation uncovered: a positive opinion on the relocation was sent by Stelian Tomov from the Tourism on Kaliakra Steering Board to MC Kavarna. Sources of Trud in the municipality are positive that Tomov is among the owners of the agricultural lands to be declared as urbanized territory. Therefore, he has a direct interest in having construction allowed. Furthermore, it is known to the public that Stelian Tomov and Toma Belev are on friendly terms. It looks like Belev will make a recommendation for the construction of a big resort near Balgarevo, where his friend has agricultural parcels. After the urbanization, their price will increase tens, even hundreds of times. The role of Krasimir Krastev and the other municipal councilors lobbying for Belev and the new resort remains to be seen. The fact is that entire sections of the letters of the Association of Parks to the Municipality are literarily copied in the memo of the Chair of the MC, Krastev. His argument is that APB will finalize the Integrated Plan of the three protected territories for free. But will it really be for free, since a person close to Toma Belev will benefit from the urbanization of agricultural land recommended by “the ecologist” where a brand-new seaside resort will emerge, raising substantially the price of the property? Fakti.bg
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