A team of Varna Free University presented the public register of the green areas in Varna
Varna aready has a developed green cadastre system. This became clear during the public presentation of the unique for the country new Public Register of the green areas, permanent ornamental trees and trees of historical significance in the territory of the Municipality of Varna.
Such kind of register has been made for the first time in Bulgaria and enables monitoring of the open green areas, the different types of vegetation in them and their management. Its development has taken nearly five years. About BGN 150, 000 municipal funds have been gradually invested in it. Two generations of students of architecture and civil engineering of VFU "Chernorizets Hrabar", as well as landscape experts have worked on its development, said the team leader, Prof. Todor Bulev, PhD, Arch. The work has been carried out in several stages. Initially the street trees and shrubs have been studied, then the vegetation along the boulevards, the greenery in the panel block spaces, and finally the out-of-town areas and industrial zones. According to the collected data 24 thousand trees are in excellent condition and 4 thousand - in poor. The street planting in the city has a length of 257 kilometers, and every Varna resident has about 30 sq metres of greenery, which according to the architects greatly exceeds the European standards.
Prof. Bulev specified that the study of the open green spaces as part of the urban design has been made for the first time in Bulgaria. "The register will make possible the observation of the greenery in Varna. The residents are very sensitive about what is threatened ant where the new construction can cause damage," said Prof. Bulev. "For me as an author, this is primarily a cadastre of the open green spaces. How it will be used from now on depends entirely on the Municipality of Varna, " also said the leader of the team that developed the methodology.
With the adoption of the register will ceasethe indiscriminate overbuilding in the green areas in the city, Ognyan Kachev, former municipal councilor and lecturer at Varna Free University is convinced "As a member of the Environmental Impact Assessment Committee, I actively worked Varna to have its green register, so I am happy that it has already happened. I do not know of other large municipalities in the country, which has a full public register of the green spaces," he said. The register will be a basic plan of the green system, part of the generalurban development plan of Varna.
The enforcement of the "green" register will reduce the tension among the residents in cases of sanitary felling, believes the chief architect of the Municipality of Varna, Victor Buzev. According to him, the system will prevent the potential for fraud. Besides, the "green" cadastre will help the planning of compensatory programs for planting. Before coming into force, the "green" register must be approved by the Municipal Council. Outside the Register now remains the main green wealth in Varna - the seaside garden. The reasons arethe ongoing restitution processes and the fact that a large part of the park has the status of a landscape historic monument, explained Prof. Bulev.
