Vacant Buildings: Health & Safety Threat
The Provincial Protector of Citizens - Ombudsman (PPCO) institution hereby points to the fact that in the City of Novi Sad there are many vacant buildings that cannot be put to use due to long-lasting legal proceedings concerning unresolved ownership issues. Their poor condition makes them a threat to public health and safety.
On 26 January 2015, the PPCO was addressed by I.B. from Novi Sad. He filed a complaint on behalf of the Tenants' Councils of several apartment buildings in Alekse Santica Street. The tenants hold their human rights are being violated due to residing in the vicinity of a vacant and unsafe residential and commercial building. It was built in 1993, but has never been put to use or maintained meanwhile. Besides parts of its facade crumbling and falling around it, presenting thus a threat to passers-by, the building is also being used as a public lavatory, with liquids flowing out of it onto the public surface. There is also a considerable amount of garbage in it, practically a small dumpsite, smelling terribly and being a potential infection source. Open, lidless utility holes all around it are a public safety threat, especially to the children attending a nearby preschool facility.
Action upon its authority to collect data on implementation of laws and other regulations concerning human rights and to inform the authorities in charge and the general public on human rights violations, the PPCO has sent the Inspection Authorities of the City of Novi Sad a request for information on what measures have been undertaken on behalf of the City Construction and Communal Inspection and the Communal Police in order to eliminate the irregularities observed. The PPCO will be in a position to establish whether the City authorities have managed or failed to perform their duties according to regulations once the authorities in charge have replied to its request.
The PPCO also points to the fact that delaying resolution of issues concerning such buildings, namely prolonged proceedings, harms public interest. It is, amongst others, evident in the case of the Workers' University building that, after a fire in April 2000, has been vacant for 14 years now.