A little more green for the people of Zagreb.
After more than two decades of neglect, the area around the University Hospital in Blato, whose completion has for years been a subject of numerous pre-election promises of politicians, will be transformed by Christmas into a park modelled on the area around the Bundek lake. This is one in a series of decisions announced by Zagreb mayor Milan Bandić in the run up to the forthcoming parliamentary elections. While the abandoned hospital complex is still empty, with the mayor saying he does not want to talk about it before the elections, 90 hectares of area around the building will be landscaped by the city-owned Zrinjevac company. The costs will be covered from the city budget, with the mayor explaining that it is a wish of the citizens for the project to be implemented, reports Vecernji List on October 11, 2015.
“We have already reviewed and divided the plot, and starting next week we will clear the area with heavy machines”, said Igor Toljan, managing director of Zrinjevac. He explained they will not remove trees thicker than 10 centimetres and that the biggest problem will be the waste left in the area and holes left after gravel extraction. The plan is to finish the works in 50 to 60 days, or by Christmas at the latest. In comparison, the area around the Bundek lake, where landscaping works took a year and a half to be completed, is only 70 hectares.
City authorities explain that for now the plan is not to add anything permanent there, but just to clear the area and allow citizens to use it for walks and picnics, until the construction of spa or hospital complex is not continued. In addition to the new park, mayor Bandić has in the last few days given several other promises. For example, most recently he promised lower fees for municipal waste collection starting from November 1, for as much as 85 percent in some cases.
While mayor Bandić is convinced that he and his party “Milan Bandić 365 – the Party of Labour and Solidarity” will not just participate in, but will win the forthcoming parliamentary elections, the citizens of Zagreb have been promised the construction or upgrading of 48 kindergartens and 39 schools, with all projects to be completed by 2020. In addition, the list of planned projects includes moments to the Homeland and to the first Croatian president Franjo Tuđman in the area between the Vatroslav Lisinski Concert Hall and the city administration building.
