THE PROBLEM WITH THE LENGTHY BUILDING PERMIT PROCESS IS NOT THE LEGISLATION BUT THE UNREASONABLY LONG APPLICATION PROCEDURES AND THE WORK OF THE ADMINISTRATIVE AUTHORITIES
 
All efforts to simplify building permit procedures always go in the direction of changing legislation. In practice, however, the long delays in issuing building permits are not due to legislation but to the absurd practice of issuing building permits that has been practised by administrative staff for the last few years.
As we often represent investors, we are confronted with the fact that, after receiving an application for a building permit, the administrative workers start rejecting the application and do not deal with the application for a building permit. There is literally a battle between the investor and the administrative worker to obtain the building permit. This is followed by a series of amendments and explanations, some of which are justified, but sometimes also complete ballast, demands without legal basis and interference by the administrative staff in areas outside their competence.In this way, the administrative body "buys" time and burdens the investor, the designer, the municipalities, etc. without responsibility and without consequences.
In addition, the consenting authorities (e.g. ARSO-Water) do not respect the time limit for issuing consents. It is already true that the ZGO-1 stipulates that if the consenting authority does not issue a consent within the time limit, it is deemed that the consent is given. However, in practice this is not the case! In one of our recent cases, ARSO requested a supplement to the water consent application 6 months after receipt of the consent application. The investors replied that they would not complete the application because their consent had already been given after the deadline (as stipulated by the Water Protection Act-1), and they had already submitted an application for a building permit to the UE Vič Rudnik. ARSO Water nevertheless rejected the application with a decision and (even) sent it to UE Vič Rudnik, which was not an authorised person on the part of the investors!
Of course, the investor then appealed within the prescribed time limit (17.5.2013), but to date (13.8.2013) the investor has not even received a notification to whom the appeal has been forwarded for resolution. The investor has been trying for at least a week to reach the person who is dealing with the complaint. In all likelihood, he will have to wait for several more months for the complaint to be resolved. To add to the irony, in this case, the renewal of an existing water consent has not been renewed, and the protection regimes have not been changed in the meantime.
Since UE Vič Rudnik was informed about the ARSO decision and the appeal, it has stopped the process of issuing the building permit until it receives a response to the appeal, despite the fact that the PGD documentation contains a return and an application showing that ARSO did not respond within the prescribed time limit, and therefore its consent to the documentation has been given (as stipulated by the ZGO-1).However, the same as at ARSO, also at UE Vič Rudnik, their decision-making bypasses the ZGO-1, so the authority in charge of the building permit procedure, as instructed by the boss (this is the answer the investor always gets when he calls UE regarding the building permit application), is waiting for the ARSO-water's answer! I would also like to add that the UE Vič Rudnik has been dealing with the building permit application since 28.1.2013!In this case, I seriously wonder why change the legislation in favour of the investor, when in practice every such provision turns out to be to the detriment of the investor. Perhaps the reasons for black buildings and non-compliant constructions in Slovenia should be sought in formalistic, inadequate and unreasonably long and complicated procedures, which investors try to avoid and thus save themselves a nervous war, which after a long time leads them to the desired building permit.
Like many things in the civil service, the benchmark for the success of applications for building permits is unreasonable. The criterion of how many applications the civil service has dealt with in time is, to put it mildly, nonsense and leads to applications being rejected in time rather than being dealt with. If the state is really trying to check the work of the administrative bodies, it should monitor how many building permits are issued within the time limit, how much the administrative body has helped and guided the investor (I think it is still the case that the state administration is at the service of the citizens) and what the satisfaction of investors is with the work of the workers in issuing building permits. I think that the results of such a record would be very poor.
On the basis of the requests of the investors I work with, I appeal for the inadequate practice of issuing building permits in Slovenia to be changed as soon as possible, for the benefit of both private investors and the economy. As long as this remains unchanged, the state can go on trying as hard as it likes to change construction legislation, but the result in practice will always be the same, with a consequent increase in black building and the relocation of investors to neighbouring countries, where they know what construction means and what proportion of the economy (and of the administrative workforce) lives off this industry.