With or without tender, construction starts in June – Projects in progress, prefab houses ready for areas struck by floods

After the floods which caused tremendous damages in Serbia, priority will be rehabilitation of energy, road and railway infrastructure as well as residential facilities, the Ministry of construction, traffic and infrastructure announced.

As the Secretary of the State with that ministry, Dejan Trifunovic, said, rehabilitation of infrastructure damaged in floods should start in June. He announced that by May 30, local self-governances will deliver preliminary list of damage at the territory of each municipality which was hit by floods.

Experts are already getting ready for their part of the job so that they would help faster rehabilitation of hit areas. Construction engineering claim there is sufficient material for construction and rehabilitation of the facilities and that the operations are ready to start. However, until the exact information arrive, it is not known how many new facilities and what type will have to be built. Apart from that, authorities have not agreed yet how work will be contracted, i.e. whether tenders will be released or whether it will be carried out through direct deals with companies.

New Serbian traditional houses

The Ministry of construction initiated that the main projects previously defined for free distribution to citizens should be adapted into facilities hit by floods, eKapija finds out.

one of the preliminary designs for Serbian traditional houses

- The idea has been initiated; we are now working on methodology on how to provide suitable projects in the best way possible. Preliminary designs were done before and a special project was done for every request separately. We should now engage architects to do type main projects - Nikola Jovanovic from the ministry, who was also a member of the commission for the selection of preliminary projects of Serbian hosues, says for our portal.

The City of Valjevo has already decided how houses to be built will look like. New 16 type houses will be provided for 42 citizens of the Rebelj village whose homes were destroyed or damaged to the extent that it is no longer possible to live in them on Medvednik. As it was announced from the Directorate for the city construction, these are type houses done by the Krsmanovic project bureau, done after the earthquake which hit the Kolubara region in 1999. They occupy 35, 62 and 87 square meters depending on the household members number.

A few thousand of new facilities

The authorities have not published the information on how many facilities require rehabilitation or construction yet. As Goran Rodic, Vice President of the Construction-industrial chamber said for the portal, according to the current data, 1700 facilities were demolished and it is to be estimated how many of them will be for demolishing.

Rodic mentions that projects of rehabilitation of all facilities should be done fast as well so that reconstruction could be implemented fast.

Prefabricated houses are ready

Vice President of the Construction-industrial chamber reminds that Serbia has 30.000 square meters in Serbia and one never knows which one will become active. Recommendation of the Chamber is to set prefabricated houses on these sites.

Rodic thinks that in plain region standard or prefabricated houses can be built and that it will depend on the owners of facilities.

The Engineering Chamber of Serbia points out those decisions on selection of the facilities should be made by experts in cooperation with local self-governance and state-owned institutions, taking into an account the needs of the region, available capacities, equipment, workforce and funds.

- We hope local self-governances have precise data on their territories such as how many companies there are which operate in designing and construction of all kinds of facilities, production of construction material, capacities, equipment, workforce and technology. All these data on available resources should be centralized in some of the state-owned institutions, maybe in the Serbian Chamber of Commerce so that capacities could be distributed evenly and according to defined needs - Gligor Obrenovic, Vice President of the Managing Board of the Engineering Chamber of Serbia, says.

the prefab house "Maker"

Obrenovic reminds that the Engineering Chamber has more than 26.500 licensed engineers of different vocation and profile and that it is ready to provide expert support in all endangered places.

We asked Ivanjica-based Maker, one of the companies with a long tradition in prefabricated houses for different parts of our country whether they are ready for participating in delivering facilities hit by floods.

- The prefab houses can be made in any kind of field. Before that, it is necessary to examine the soil in order to see what kind of foundation is to be set. Prefab houses are more favorable for hilly regions because equipment weight is smaller so they are delivered in easier and faster way - Vladan Maricic, director of Ivanjica-based Maker said.

Maricic said that the average house price of 60 m2 can be assembled in four days and after that vocational works vocational works would follow. The grey stage, as we call it, costs EUR 185 per square meter with VAT. The question is whether there will be donation of brick or carpentry so the price would be lower – our collocutor explains.

Tender or direct deal

Maker points out that if larger number of facilities is required, companies should set up consortium and they state as an example agreement after the earthquake which hit Kraljevo in 2010.

The authorities have still not answered how work will be distributed when it comes to country rehabilitation after floods.

Goran Rodic, Vice President of the Construction-industrial Chamber thinks that physical entities will be provided financial assets through some fund based on the damage estimation and they will decide which company will rehabilitate or build their house.

- The Commission for damage will estimate how it will be done. When it comes to public facilities, it will depend on local self-governances where a specific facility is. The Law on the support to construction industry in economic crisis should be considered which defines that local self-governances sign a direct contract with a company.

At the end of all estimations, in case jobs are made through direct deal, it is likely another commission will have to be set up which will estimate whether there were some misuse. Still, this is not the first catastrophe which hit Serbia so we already experienced gains through people’s misfortune.

Suzana Obradovic