At the sitting held on 14 October, the members of the Committee on Urban Planning and Construction accepted, in principle, the Bill on the Spatial Plan of the Republic of Serbia from 2010 to 2020, submitted by the Government of the Republic of Serbia.

Minister of Environment and Spatial Planning Oliver Dulic expressed pleasure at the fact that the Bill will be on the National Assembly’s agenda. He said that the Bill is an important expert document which Serbia is to adopt for the first time. In addition, the Bill covers a 10-year period, reflects the connection between the past, present and future and is the citizens’ contract with the future, stressed Minister Dulic. All the strategic documents adopted so far had been taken into consideration in the drafting of the Spatial Plan Proposal and as such it represents a condition for the reform of physical and institutional infrastructure in the country. It is a roof document and a requirement for the development and drafting of other plans and strategies, considering that so far only 2% of Serbia has been covered by plans. By adopting the Bill the state will do its share of work which will provide the basis for local self-governments to draft their own plans and urbanism documents so that the whole territory of Serbia might be regulated by urban development plans. The policies of decentralisation, polycentrism, integration and sustainable development were defined in the realisation of the Bill’s vision, while rural development was put in particular focus, concluded Minister Dulic.

Professor Stojkov and his team of experts, who worked on the drafting of the Bill, presented the professional aspect of the Spatial Plan to the Committee members. He stated that the document had been put to a broad public debate on expert levels as well as harmonised with the representatives of 150 municipalities and 24 towns. The basic principles of the Spatial Plan are environmental management as the cornerstone of development; revitalized population and human capital as the basic purpose of development; sustainable economy as the standard of development; decentralisation – community as the nucleus of development; polycentrism – towns as engines of development and integration – internal and external networking. The established basic goals are balanced regional development and improved social cohesion; regional competitiveness and affordability, sustainable use of resources and protected and improved environment; protected and regulated sustainable usage of natural and cultural heritage, landscape and spatial and functional integration into the environment.

In the discussion on the Bill, the Committee members declared the Bill important for all citizens and expressed pleasure at the public debate. The Committee members wanted to know why the Bill did not include the 2009 data which are the grounds of the Kragujevac townspeople’s dissatisfaction with the Bill and how many Serbian municipalities have so far submitted their own plans, as well as what the hindering factor was in the municipalities that have not done so.

Following the debate the Committee members accepted the Bill on the Spatial Plan of the Republic of Serbia from 2010 to 2020, in principle, by a majority of votes.

The sitting was chaired by Jovan Nesovic, Committee Chairman.