Macedonians Hurry to Authorize Illegal Builds

Days before a September 3 deadline approaches, more than 60,000 requests to legalize illegal builds in Macedonia have reached officials, the Ministry for Local Government said.

“This is one-third of the 170,000 or so requests for legalization that have arrived so far [since the start of the campaign in January]," Dragan Simonovski, spokesperson for the Ministry, said.

Illegal builds have been tolerated for decades in Macedonia, blighting landscapes and causing major problems with utilities, sewage and infrastructure.
 
The ministry estimates that about 350,000 such developments have been constructed without planning permission and taxes paid. According to some estimates, this represents about 40 per cent of the total number of buildings standing in Macedonia.

In an attempt to deal with the problem, at the start of this year the authorities launched the campaign allowing the owners of such properties to legalize their assets for the symbolic price of only a euro per square metre.

The paperwork needed to submit requests for legalization was also reduced, to speed up procedures.

The centre-right government of Nikola Gruevski said the move was designed to lift the burden hovering over households who feared their illegal houses might be torn down.

But the main opposition Social Democrats condemned the property amnesty, calling it a populist meaure designed to make life easy for the owners of illegal luxurious villas who are close to the government.

A number of mayors also complained, saying the government was being over-generous with money that should otherwise go to the local authorities in taxes. They wanted to see much higher taxes on the owners of illegal builds.

To meet those criticisms, after the legalization deadline expires, the authorities have announced steeper regulations and penalties for offenders.