Problems with the new law
The new Law concerning agricultural land in Croatia cause quite a debate during the last week. Investors and large construction contractors believe that it will make their business more difficult and their investing efforts substantially more expensive.
The Law is intended to protect agricultural land in Croatia from extensive urbanization by introducing a new fee which every investor must compensate in order to turn agricultural land areas into urban areas. The size of the fee is determined by the size of the squared surface of the land, and not by the size of the land used for building. The category of the land, or its farming quality, is also taken into concern when establishing the fee. Some investors and real estate experts say that this Law will only lead to even more expensive apartments, which will then in turn lead to loss of jobs in the construction sector due to smaller demand for apartments on the market. They also say that there will be more extensive building in the new urbanized areas.
Predictions of new Law’s effects are different depending on the source, so all we can do now is to be patient and wait to see what the New Year of 2009 will bring us in the end!
Great initiative this Blog. The new law does bring some negative outcome. But aren’t new apartments built on already zoned land? The law just brings a halt to additional residential zones.
Well, the law is intended to bring some order into the urbanization of land in Croatia, but some people say that bringing a new fee “into the game” is not really the best possible way to do this. They argue that this law will only make it more expensive to build new apartments, so there will be extensive over-construction in areas that were meant for urbanization in the first place. In my opinion, this whole debate is fueled by the current financial crisis.