District offices will regain the right to authorise constructions

Chisinau Mayor Dorin Chirtoaca seeks to give back the right to issue urbanism certificates and construction authorisations for sites covering up to 40 m2 in area to the district city offices in a move to decentralise the powers of the Architecture & Urbanism Gen. Dpt. The mayor said at today’s City Hall meeting that delegating these competences will make the district offices more responsible in what concerns the building sites on the territory under their jurisdiction. The decentralisation will lead to a better and closer approach to the problems of the ordinary citizens and of the district offices, the mayor said. Vladimir Guritenco, Buiucani district head, stated that most of the problematic constructions in the city appeared because the General Department for Architecture and Urbanism was overloaded and fell short of meeting the demands of the population. Vladimir Modarca, Chisinau’s chief architect, pointed out that regardless of the authority issuing specific certificates, these will be recorded by the General Department in a special register, meaning that “the procedure will not entirely get out of the department’s eye sight”. The head of Centru district, Vladimir Sarban, mentioned however that there are not enough specialists that could handle the job. In his words, the district offices employ just one architect who will not be able to cope with the large number of applications. Speaking on the same subject, deputy mayor Mihai Furtuna suggested the district heads should ask the City Hall to consider an increase in the number of personnel while planning the budget for the next year.