Municipality of Bucharest prevails in zoning dispute with support from bpv Grigorescu Stefanica

bpv Grigorescu Stefanica represented the Municipality of Bucharest and won a dispute with two private companies, owners of a plot land located in Obor area. The amount claimed by the two owners was of approx. EUR 5,000,000. The amount was determined based on a judicial appraisal and represented the alleged income not earned due to the impossibility to build on the owned plot land in absence of a Zonal Urban Plan which was issued by GCBM only in 2015.

Bucharest Mayoralty was represented by Daniel Stefanica, Partner and Head of Dispute Resolution Practice together with his team of lawyers from which Raluca Marcu (Managing Associate) and Serban Dumitrescu (Senior Associate) were part.

“The case was challenging in terms of both the time length of the dispute (it was initiated in 2012) and the required evidence. Thus, the expert opinions issued in this case had, mainly, the aim, to determine the constructions that the owners could have built, on the plot land, in 2011, as well as their most sensible business use. Finally, the calculation of the unearned income was made in relation to the income that the owners could have derived if they could have erected the buildings and use them at the best since 2011, and the income that they actually earned by exploiting the plot land. From another point of view, the court decision is relevant because it validates a line of thought in the administrative law: the public authority has the right to assess the opportunity of issuing an normative administrative act” declared Daniel Stefanica.