18 municipalities signed contracts for 133 million BGN under the “Regional Development” Operational Program

The Deputy-Minister of Regional Development and Public Works Liliana Pavlova and the mayors of 18 municipalities signed contracts for 133 million BGN under the “Regional Development” Operational Program 2007-2013 (RDOP).
The projects that will be financed are a part of a scheme for non-recourse finance help called “Support for improving the urban environment”. In order for them to be successfully realized, the municipalities will be able to rely on close partnership with the Ministry of Regional Development and Public Works. This is what Deputy-Minister Pavlova said at the signing.
The mayors warned that due to high activity and the great number of projects that some municipalities are implementing simultaneously, they have financial difficulties. For their financial condition to be relieved the requirement for an annex in case of even minor changes in the projects will be annulled, as it slows down the payments to the beneficiaries, Deputy-Minister Pavlova announced. She added that the annexes will be added once or twice a year, as thus the payment flow to the municipalities will be sped up and they will be able to have sufficient finance resource available. The projects according to the scheme “Support for improving the urban environment” include the building, rehabilitation or reconstruction of public recreation zones, like parks, green areas, children’s playgrounds, etc. pedestrian lanes and sidewalks, bicycle lanes, underpasses for pedestrians and cyclists street networks. Public parking lots will be built near to main streets. Energy-saving street lighting will be introduced. It is foreseen that measures are implemented for raising security and preventing crime, like providing lighting at park areas, alarm surveillance systems at public places, etc. The projects are aimed at creating accessible architectural environment, including the improvement of disabled people’s accessibility to administrative buildings. The deadline for implementation of all the project’s activities is 24 months.
The municipalities that will get financing according to Component 1 from the scheme “Municipalities of the 7 big cities” are Sofia, Ruse, Plovdiv. For Component 2 – “79 Municipalities within the city agglomeration areas”, the contracts signed are with the following municipalities: Beloslav, Blagoevgrad, Velingrad, Gorna Oryahovitsa, Gotse Delchev, Kurdjali, Lovetch, Lom, Nova Zagora, Pazardjik, Petritch, Popovo, Razgrad, Haskovo, Shoumen.
Due to the situation of economic crisis, and the tendencies of the market of the construction sector, in September 2009 the leader of the Managing Authority of the RDOP assigned the assessment of the separate prices as price-formation of the projects. In this way, the common value of all the 18 projects was reduced from 163 million BGN to 133 million BGN. The difference is due to the fact that the prices in the project proposals were formulated at the end of 2008, and are now at lower levels. The price of each single project is reduced with between 15% and 25%. 
The released resource according to the scheme is redirected towards the second invitation for the collection of project proposals that are associated with it. Thus the available sum for financing of projects for improvement of the urban environment reaches the total of 110 million BGN. The 86 municipalities that are within the range of the city agglomeration areas will be able to apply in connection with the invitation, with deadline until 8th January 2010.