Interview with Mayor Shilegov: Skopje will spread to the north

New look of the center of the city, new management of the Drisla landfill, which will bring in money and cleaner air, removal of fountains from the river Vardar, new traffic solution – and other projects announced by the Mayor of the City of Skopje, Petre Shilegov, in an interview with Nezavisen Vesnik / Independent Daily.

How will the city mark the anniversary of the catastrophic 1963 earthquake in Skopje on July 26?

The city of Skopje will traditionally mark the anniversary of the tragic event of the devastating 1963 earthquake. In the early morning hours we will visit the city cemetery where the city institutions and I as Skopje’s Mayor will lay flowers on the graves of the victims of the earthquake. On this occasion, as part of the Summerland festival, Vlatko Stefanovski, one of Skopje’s most prominent residents in the past few decades, will have his own performance. We will not make a special event as we did last year, when we marked the 55th anniversary of the devastating earthquake, this year we will have a more modest marking of the day, but we will not by any means diminish the significance of the tragedy.

The old railway station, which was destroyed in the earthquake, remained a monument of the catastrophe, but then the company Limak decided to build a huge complex behind it, and it also plans to construct an underground boulevard to build this complex. What does that mean?

The project of Limak is a project that we inherited and is linked to an agreement that the City and the Municipality of Centar have reached with the investor. It was imperative for me in the phase of starting the construction works to ensure that the rest of the old railway station was protected, even more so that the Museum of the City of Skopje is also there. What I asked of the developer is to perform the first protective works around the building, in order to avoid further damage to it, and it will be and will remain visible enough and sufficiently impressive to continue to be a symbol of the city on the one hand and a reminder of the tragedy of another side.
The buildings that are being built now the Limak complex are not in the part of the underground boulevard. A hotel is being built there which was never part of the Limak project, but it has been purchased from a private investor. At the moment, the ground works for penetrating the underground roadway are underway, because the road itself is the basis of the project. What we see at the moment, which takes place as a construction work on a project, is a project that is not at all part of that complex and is not a construction that is located above the underground road.

You have announced several ambitious projects for solving traffic jams in Skopje. One of them covers the tunnels to be dug under Kale, but that project starts from the crossroads at the Limak complex. Won’t the city center be jammed for years for the construction of a road that should pass over the Kliment Ohridski Boulevard?

Currently we are working on designing tunnels under The Skopje Fortress (referred to as Kale). The city signed the design contract at the beginning of June this year and I expect it to be ready sometime around New Year’s. The tunnels are important for our city. I hope so, as today we discussed today in Government, because this is a project that requires financial assistance, and they are fundamental if we want to develop a city strategy. We have only one direct connection north to south in Skopje and it doesn’t go to the end. It goes through Yahya Pasha, through Bit Pazar and ends somewhere in the central city area, but it does not gohrough the corridor and does not connect Vodno in the route. This new corridor is a direct connection of Vodno with the northern points of our city, because it is a continuation of the Kliment Ohridski boulevard, which passes by the Government and now ends with a parking lot, with a bridge over the river where there will be an uphill, for a viaduct over the Lazar Lichenovski Street, , to enter under the hill somewhere in the part of the Museum of Contemporary Art, and exit the crossroads of the so-called Plasticharska street, not to the US Embassy, but below, at a height of nine meters, in order to bridge that crossroad because it is the northern highway and a fast highway, which should not have any interventions with smaller streets. And as a boulevard solution ends in the old Ciglana to the Porsche facility. In fact, you will get a boulevard solution, a modern road from the end points of the northern part of the city. We are already working on the Bosnia and Herzegovina Boulevard and so we will start the finalization of the north-south connection which is a matter of urgency.

Skopje’s gasification is also expected. One pipeline that goes through Vodno has encountered resistance from environmental associations. But still, when that system starts to penetrate into the city, won’t there be re-digging of streets that have been intensively renewed during this summer period?

Perhaps the worst thing for a mayor is when the city needs underground construction. You disturb the everyday life of the citizens on one hand, and on the other hand, no one sees that something is happening. However, few people have noticed that we have changed the Rules of Procedure. My concentration last year was to close the so-called gas pipeline ring around our city and we are finishing it. We are now in the phase of terrestrial gasification, that is, make the gas available to retail consumers. It will not require re-digging the streets, but perhaps only some of the smaller streets, but this does not apply to the main city streets. So, before we started with the reconstruction of Partizanski Odredi Boulevard we closed it for two days and installed the pipes for the gas pipeline. It might sound a little strange, but my way of work is different from what used to be normal. We also changed the Rulebook, in which we introduced the rule not to re-dig a reconstructed street in the next three years. We turned to all the companies that own the underground installations, the water supply network, the sewage system, the heat and the cables, and we contacted those companies, and according to the feedback we received, we planned our activities for reconstruction of the roads. I really don’t think it’s okay to reconstruct a street, and then re-dig it. It’s a waste. Unless there is some kind of defect.

You started planting greenery on the GTC rooftop, actually on a very small part of it… but it encountered criticism from the expert public, and you announced the alteration of the basic project. Have you started this project, which, as announced, was supposed to be available to the citizens this summer?

The work has started. Installations are set up. I think that by the end of the calendar summer, it will be completed.

The Drisla landfill is under the jurisdiction of the City of Skopje, you have pointed out several times that the city spends 120,000 euros per month only on waste collection. How do you plan to introduce the selection and how did you get to that calculation?

The Drisla landfill is a very difficult problem of the City, because the procedure that was conducted was problematic. What was going on there for the past eight years as in placement, as well as in financial and in any other sense, we first need to see the economic performance in order to make the right decision. Whether we can enter ourselves as the City of Skopje or with the means generated by Drisla as a subject to make a serious landfill, or we will need the help of an investor. In conditions of changed technology and an amended law, it would have simply been irresponsible of me and the Council of the City of Skopje, that is, the decision maker, to not use the opportunity to take the city out of the legal maze provided by not reaching a contract with Scholz. The city again had the opportunity to choose the FCL Ambiente, but according to the experience we’ve had in the past eight years, I simply could not allow it and believe that it is a relevant potential partner. The decision of the Council was to return Drisla to the City in order to be able to create an entirely new strategy in the city without any legal risks. We are losing a lot because of the waste. We’re losing because we do not have waste selection. Only in the selection of plastic, we lose 120,000 euros a month, or about one million and a half euros annually. The private investor should have bought a separator at Drisla. First, let’s see what the financial condition of Drisla is, and if we can do it…

How much does this separator cost?

Somewhere between three and four million euros. If we can do it ourselves, why give money to some investor, when we could use those funds. Second, waste is used for energy everywhere, except in Skopje. The overall investment should be about 80 million euros, to license the products of electricity. Sometimes I regret that we wasted so much time. We would be able to simply refund the money we pay for services from the Drisla electricity.

Air pollution, especially during the winter period, is a huge problem for the City of Skopje. What are your plans for reducing air pollution this upcoming winter?

Whenever pollution is in question, I don’t think we should go for possible instant solutions. In the past year and a half, the city has taken about thirty measures that are not a solution to the problem, but are helpful during days of critical levels of pollution. What I also personally have been satisfied with is that the city has established or created an energy strategy.  We have established city power systems, and we have completed the legalization of hot water distribution systems, something that was never done before. Unfortunately, the city’s hot water distribution system was not introduced into the cadaster which is absurd. I went to a meeting in the Government, because the network and installations are de facto owned by the state, so we had to reexamine the problem. My idea is that the whole network or its parts take over the city and bring them down within the framework of the city power systems, in order to have the license be authorized as a distributor of thermal energy. It means that the City would be able to create an energy policy and be a factor on the market, but because of the existence of that company to offer a range of benefits for the citizens, for socially endangered to join the heating system because it is the most environmentally friendly and cheapest way to warm households. We worked on this in the past year and a half, because 70,000 households with our city are excluded from the so-called organized heating system. What GES is doing right now – we have a good team of designers so that we do not waste any more time while the network is legalized – they draw the future development of that network. I expect that by the end of August, the Government will be able to present the entire, or part of the City of Skopje network, so that the City will initiate a procedure for obtaining a license before a regulatory commission and finally begin to define household heating ad the main generator of polluted air.

Does that mean that people who own houses can have central heating?

Absolutely. There are neighborhoods that, although they are mostly with individual housing units, can be added to the central heating network, and parts of the city that don’t allow this, will be added to the gasification network. But it is necessary to have licenses for both things, and I cannot do anything through GES until we get the network. Until we apply for a license, we can’t do anything, and then we will be able to do the work and generate new costs, but, either way, it’s an investment for the future.

But is it a long process?

Yes, it is. So whenever I talk about air pollution, I refer to a medium-term plan. But, as you see, the entire system of new public transportation is completed by the City. What we are waiting for now is government funding. Whether it will be by financing the tram plan or other public transportation mode that the City has worked on, it is part of analyzes currently underway. If we manage to get fully convince them, because Skopje has a budget of only sixty million euros, so I cannot afford to bear all the costs. If we enter into such an agreement, then we have a totally new concept of public transport with a closed traffic center, buses every 4.5 minutes and a tram every 4.5 minutes on station. Therefore, along with the enhanced inspection, these are the three elements that should contribute to reducing pollution. Everything else is at the level of speculation.

The center of Skopje will get a new look

You have announced a new look for the city center. The facades of several buildings are still not renewed. What is your idea?

In the first year of my term, there were serious criticisms that Shilegov wasn’t doing his job. This was a consequence of the fact that as a mayor of Skopje, which is a serious matter, you are not supposed to make quick decisions. At the end of the day, one shouldn’t react to all criticisms, whatever they are. My idea was that we will start putting the vision for Skopje, on which I continuously work, in paper. This year we are more visible, because we have completed the city planning strategy. We are now working on plans for the city for the next year. We are already working, from now on we are preparing the things that will happen next year. Next fall, the city will get a new well-arranged pavement on a high European level from the exit of GTC to “Porta Makedonija” around “Lumix”, which is paved and in poor condition. I expect it to be settled by the end of October. I can announce that the next year the center of Skopje will be closed for traffic. Work will be done differently in the central city area, which includes several buildings that still have their old facades. This upcoming fall, these facades will renewed, but I would rather have things started first, then just talk about them. So yes, what we are working on the moment for 2020 will be the complete rearrangement of the central city area that will cover both buildings that we managed to save from the Skopje 2014 project.

Will it fit somehow with the other buildings or will it be a colorful mess?

It is about how authentic Skopje is. What bother me is that Skopje, as we see it now, never existed. The center of Skopje was an exemplar of modern architecture and that is something we lost, so at least with these two buildings (the building of Pelagonia and that one next to it), which were also representatives of modern architecture, we will try to protect their authenticity.

Biljana Bogdanovska

Photo: Boris Grdanoski