Gazivode: Six Homes Demolished, CASA Doubts Legality

In Medjedji Potok, a settlement on Lake Gazivode in the municipality of Zubin Potok, six weekend homes were demolished on September 9, while a seventh, a prefabricated structure, had already been removed earlier. According to documentation cited by the outlet KoSSev, the demolition was carried out on the order of the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Rural Development of the Provisional Institutions in Pristina, with the assistance of Kosovo police.

The ministry delivered property release orders to the owners of the seven weekend homes on August 12, arguing that the structures had been built without permits on land the ministry lists as its own property, inside the sanitary protection zone of a water source. Oversight of the operation was, according to the available documentation, meant to be carried out by inspectors from the Central Department for Forestry and Hunting Inspection, with police assisting at the ministry’s request. The timeline for this stretch of shoreline runs as follows:

• July 23, the weekend homes in Medjedji Potok were sealed and cordoned off with tape on the ministry’s order
• August 12, property release requests were delivered to the owners, with a ten-day deadline from receipt of the decision
• September 9, six weekend homes were demolished, with the seventh already removed earlier

At least one owner filed a complaint and submitted documentation of a contract with the state forestry company Srbijasume, though it remains unconfirmed what came of that appeal, or whether the September 9 demolition was based specifically on the August orders or on some later decision.

One resident described how the operation was carried out, in an account passed on by KoSSev:

There’s too much abuse going on. For instance, they’d break down a door with a spoon, carry out a chair, sit down and light a cigarette. At one of the weekend homes they pulled out ornamental plants and fruit trees. They dug up two fig trees and threw them away.

By his account, seven weekend homes had been demolished on that stretch of shoreline by the morning of September 9.

The Other Side of the Lake: What Happened in Rezala?

The demolitions in Medjedji Potok continue a wave that began on the opposite shore of the lake, in the village of Rezala. There, the operation started on September 4 at the request of the Pristina-based public utility company Ibar-Lepenac, also with the assistance of Kosovo police. KoSSev visited the site on September 5 and confirmed that at least nine houses had been demolished by that point, along with the village’s Holy Trinity hall, a building the residents had constructed themselves and had used for nearly two decades to gather during the village’s patron saint celebration.

Ibar-Lepenac’s first notice in Rezala, sent to the owners of roughly twenty houses requesting proof of ownership, arrived on July 22, while the call to remove the village hall followed in early August. Representatives of the OSCE and EULEX were also on site, according to KoSSev, documenting the process.

Sources disagree both on the scale of the demolitions and on who ordered them. KoSSev reports that around 35 structures have been destroyed so far in the Gazivode area, while Mondo writes that at least 20 structures in Serbian ownership were demolished on Ibar-Lepenac’s order. There is also disagreement over jurisdiction: on September 9, Mondo reported that the entire wave of demolitions was being carried out on Ibar-Lepenac’s order, while KoSSev, citing documentation for Medjedji Potok, states that the property release orders there were issued by institutions under the Ministry of Agriculture, not by the utility company.

Do the Demolitions Have a Legal Basis?

On the very day six more weekend homes were demolished in Medjedji Potok, the nongovernmental organization CASA, the Center for Affirmative Social Action, based in North Mitrovica, published a legal analysis titled “Procedural Legality of the Demolition of Houses and Weekend Homes in the Gazivode Lake Area.” The analysis covers demolitions carried out in June and July, not the latest wave, but it raises questions that apply to the whole process underway at the lake.

CASA states that the only document produced so far as a basis for the demolitions is an Ibar-Lepenac notice dated July 3, which gave occupants 15 days to vacate the parcels. According to the analysis, that document shows none of the elements of an administrative decision, a court ruling or an enforceable instrument, in either form or content. The organization notes that Ibar-Lepenac is indeed a public company, but that status alone does not grant it general administrative, inspection or enforcement authority. One of the analysis’s conclusions reads:

Ownership of the land and the right to demolish a structure are not the same thing.

CASA raises a particular question about the role of Kosovo police in the demolitions, and is explicit on that point:

Police assistance cannot substitute for an inspection procedure, nor can it legalize the actions of an entity that has no authority to issue and carry out a demolition measure on its own.

Based on the documentation available so far, the organization concludes:

There are serious grounds to doubt the procedural legality of the actions taken.

CASA stresses that the analysis does not claim every demolished structure was legally built, nor does it dispute the right of public authorities to protect public property and enforce water and environmental regulations. The organization also notes that key primary documentation, such as individual decisions and proof of delivery, is still unavailable, so its conclusions about specific violations should for now be treated as conditional.

For Medjedji Potok, unlike Rezala, the documentation cited by KoSSev points to a different issuing authority, a ministry rather than a public company, which, following the logic of CASA’s analysis, could also change the legal assessment of the process. It remains an open question whether the relevant authorities will publish, for Medjedji Potok, the individual decisions and proof of delivery that CASA identifies as missing, and whether owners such as the one who has already filed a complaint backed by a Srbijasume contract will manage to challenge the demolitions before, as the analysis warns, all that is left is the right to judicial protection, without any possible restitution for what has already been torn down.