engleski

One lost battle for the public space: The case of Travno park in Novi Zagreb

In 2002 an initiative to build a new church in the central park of the Travno neighbourhood in Novi Zagreb provoked heated discussions among local residents and between local residents and the city planning authorities. This was one of the first organized public initiatives (in Zagreb) to protect the public domain and one of the first attempts of non-government organizations to become actively involved in the process of making new urban plans. Using the case of Travno, this paper illustrates the problems of the post-communist country where public interests remain undefined and weakly protected. The case also illustrates the role of the general public in the processes of making new urban plans, and the problems local initiatives face in the procedural labyrinths. Although the procedure of making new urban plans clearly demands citizen participation and public discussions, the local administration often sees this as a burden for the realization of certain planning actions so these initiatives are often ignored. In an environment where city administration openly puts individual interests as their priority and where individual protests for protection of the public domain are systematically ignored, it is of the utmost importance that organized citizens’ initiatives become actively involved into the planning process.

Citizen participation; Urban planning; Novi Zagreb; Travno

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