Milan Bandić

Milan Bandić (22 November 1955 – 28 February 2021) was a Croatian politician and the longest-serving mayor of Zagreb, the capital of Croatia. Bandić was mayor almost continuously from 2000 to 2021, except during the time between his resignation in 2002 and the 2005 election. He was also suspended from exercising his powers and duties for several months after his 2014 arrest over a corruption scandal. Out of Bandić's multifaceted engagement in politics, the most noted part was his mayoralty of Zagreb, which followed the Croatian Democratic Union's (HDZ) first post-socialist period of government (1990–2000), and exacerbated many existing transitional problems in the city.

Born in the Herzegovinian town of Grude, Bandić moved to Zagreb to study to become a teacher of Marxism and Defence and Protection at the University of Zagreb. Starting in the early 1980s, he rose through the ranks of the League of Communists of Croatia and its post-1990 successor, the Social Democratic Party (SDP), becoming a city councillor in 1995 and president of the SDP's Zagreb branch in 1997. Following the 1995–1997 Zagreb crisis, he led the opposition against the imposed HDZ administration led by Mayor Marina Matulović Dropulić. Forcing snap elections in 2000, following the fall of the national HDZ government, Bandić ran for mayor with the SDP and won a plurality with 20% of the vote. He would go on to serve five more terms. In 2009, he was expelled from the SDP for running for Croatian president in the 2009–10 election, where he ran against and lost the second round to the SDP's chosen candidate, Ivo Josipović. In 2015, he formed a new party, Bandić Milan 365 – Labour and Solidarity Party, and entered into a coalition with the HDZ. His mayoralty was fraught with scandals and interrupted twice. First time was from 2002 to 2005 when he was caught fleeing the scene of an accident he caused while drunk driving and threatening the police officer who caught him; he resigned and was kept on as deputy mayor for social services under Acting Mayor Vlasta Pavić. The second time was in 2014–15 due to prosecution in the Agram affair which was still ongoing at the time of his death. Bandić remained mayor throughout the events, but was temporarily forbidden from exercising his mayoral duties and powers, and appointed Sandra Švaljek and later Vesna Kusin as acting mayors before fully assuming his duties. Some of the scandals led to convictions of high-ranking city officials, but Bandić himself was never convicted of a felony, though he was fined for conflicts of interest.

Bandić ruled the city in a direct and highly centralised manner, devolving few to no powers to elected officials beneath him, and maintaining much control over the city during the periods when he was not in office. His politics was populist, primarily seeking support from the poor, while trying to appeal to the rest of the citizens by announcing numerous capital infrastructure projects. A few projects were realised in the mid-2000s, such as Lake Bundek renovation, construction of Arena Zagreb and Zagreb Avenue widening, as well as the long-awaited late-2010s construction of an underpass under Remetinec Roundabout. Many more were repeatedly announced but never completed, ''e.g.'' reconstruction of the Sljeme cable car, a spa in Blato, completing the long-awaited , a congress centre, and reconstructing the Maksimir Stadium. Public transport was not improved beyond renewing the tram rolling stock. Bandić's era saw an unprecedented 20 years go by without the construction of new tram lines, despite his many announcements of tram network expansions.

Bandić died of an alleged heart attack in early 2021, two months before the regular local elections, having held office for 17 years and 165 days. He was succeeded in his roles of mayor and BM 365 president by his deputy Jelena Pavičić Vukičević as acting mayor. His legacy remained controversial due to numerous nepotism and clientelism scandalswhich involved many of his associates, including his successor Pavičić Vukičevićbudget deficit and soon to mature bonds, and the slow and expensive recovery from the heavily damaging 2020 earthquakes. During his mayoralty, Bandić was bestowed with several honours, including honorary citizenship of Srebrenica, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and membership in the Brethren of the Croatian Dragon.

Mayor of Zagreb

Continuing his predecessor, Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) government's, 1990s pattern of deregulation and abandonment of urban planning, Bandić's mayoralty was characterised by unsustainable projects creating unplanned investment-driven sprawl and causing overbuilding. The inconsistency and non-specificity of the general urban master plans of 2003 and 2007 allowed the private sector to take over the role of urban planning from professionals. The master plan was frequently altered to accord with private investors' interests, while citizens and urban planners had minimal participation in the projects. As a consequence, it failed to achieve its objections, and urban renewal in Zagreb was characteristic of the so-called era of the bulldozer: a discarded approach involving construction of unsustainable luxury housing on the site of former undesirable neighbourhoods and areas. The city continued an ongoing trend of losing vegetation, replacing a significant fraction of its green spaces with pavement and buildings. Bandić's administration was highly centralised. Bandić was directly involved in all matters that concerned running the city. The 1999 city statute created two levels of self-government: 17 arbitrarily drawn city districts which were divided into local committees. In practice, district councils were bogged down in bureaucracy and had no effect beyond enacting plans for "small community actions", while forming of local committees only began in 2008. During the Great Recession, the city cut the funding for small community actions, effectively stopping self-governmental activity. Bandić's mayoralty reduced citizen participation to a formality, using manipulation and confrontation to marginalise citizens who disagreed with their initiatives. Bandić often confronted disagreeing citizens and participated in publicity stunts.

The master plan removed a long-standing moratorium on construction of buildings over nine storeys in height. Together with lack of precision in detailed spatial plans, which were in fact abrogated for many city project areas in the 2006 plan, this state of affairs allowed new structures to arbitrarily affect the city's skyline. High-rise office towers in urban areas and dense housing projects in previously suburban areas, such as Lanište and Borovje, were built without improvements to infrastructure and corresponding amenities, causing traffic jams and overburdening of schools, hospitals and other amenities. New apartment buildings lagged behind late Communist-era housing in construction standards and amenities. In one case, poor construction standards at a building site led to the creation of a sinkhole which swallowed up one whole side of Kupska Street in Trnje.

Much of the prime development space was allocated to commercial developments, numerous shopping malls in particular, while new residential developments were relegated to less attractive and poorly connected, previously industrial areas. Among other cultural venues, Bandić made efforts to resettle Zagreb Hippodrome, Zagreb Fair and NK Lokomotiva's football stadium to clear space for real estate development. By 2006, Zagreb had over 30 shopping malls. Overbuilding and subsequent failure of shopping malls created abandoned lots in areas well supported by infrastructure. It also caused a loss of profitability and large-scale closure of small shops and crafts in the city centre, especially on Ilica, Zagreb's historical high street, and created private land out of previously public sections of streets and squares, particularly in the Donji grad pedestrian zone. Lack of interest and investment on the city's part enabled continued decay of old buildings in the city centre, making them vulnerable to purchase and conversion into luxury apartments, which attracted the rich and displaced existing middle class residents. The city centre also lost population as residents were beset by high traffic and noise pollution—the city raised allowed noise limits to 95  dB during daytime and 90 dB at night, far above Ministry of Health regulations. Bandić would repeatedly put focus on attractive perennial capital projects, while failing to improve Zagreb's aging infrastructure; in 2015, 80,000 households lacked running water and sewerage connections. Funds raised by Zagreb Holding bonds in 2007 for the purpose of improving infrastructure were almost in entirety spent on other projects, including real estate acquisition.

In the 1990s, Zagreb was hit by a spate of illegal construction. Informal settlements were created by refugees of Yugoslav Wars, while better-off land owners built or enlarged their homes without permits. Illegal building due to property speculation was most prevalent in the Medvednica Foothills, renamed Podsljeme in 1999. Construction in Podsljeme in particular has been characterised by so-called "urban villas" (), apartment buildings of up to twenty flats, densely packed into formerly green areas and often lacking basic services and facilities. In 1998, the Croatian Democratic Union's Matulović-Dropulić administration legalised all illegal developments built up to that point, with the clause that future illegal construction would be demolished. However, the problem of illegal construction intensified after Bandić came to power, expanding from the suburbs into the interiors of Donji grad city blocks. Bandić, who himself constructed a house illegally, defended illegal construction throughout his mayoralty, supporting an early 2010s effort by the Kukuriku coalition government to legalise over 90,000 buildings in Zagreb; yet few buildings in destitute Kozari Putevi neighbourhood, where Bandić had launched his career in 2000, had been legalised by 2013. Some of the legalised buildings ended up preventing the construction of long-planned arterial roads in whose paths they were located.

Flower Square affair

Bandić established himself as the person in charge of all aspects of running Zagreb, becoming a spokesman for several controversial projects, one of which was the construction of a shopping mall on a historic Donji grad square. In 2006, real estate developer Tomislav Horvatinčić, who had made use of Bandić's new urban master plan to build the 17-storey HOTO Tower in 2004, presented a plan for "Life Style Center" (later to become , "Flower Centre"), a mall with a 700-car underground parking garage in Zagreb's pedestrian zone, on the Petar Preradović Square, popularly known as Flower Square (). The project involved tearing down former home of Zagreb's most famous architect Hermann Bollé, the birth house of poet Vladimir Vidrić, and the Cinema Zagreb. It was opposed by the NGOs Green Action and Right to the City, as well as numerous public figures. The Serbian Orthodox Church also opposed the project, laying claim to Cinema Zagreb, which had been expropriated from the church by the post-WWII Communist government. A petition to stop the project was run, collecting over 54,000 signatures.

After initially denying the existence of the shopping mall project, Bandić supported Horvatinčić's efforts by modifying the general urban master plan. Horvatinčić attracted controversy by calling the buildings "rat holes"; the invective was picked up by the Bandić administration. In one case in 2007, Bandić publicly cursed out the protesters, singling out Right to the City leader Teodor Celakoski. Protests and lawsuits filed by the Ministry of Environmental Protection and Spatial Planning delayed and reduced the scope of the project, which at one point involved remodelling the entire city block, but ultimately failed to stop it, in large part thanks to Bandić's involvement. Notably, police cracked down on a protest in February 2010 opposing the conversion of part of Varšavska Street pedestrian zone to parking garage ramp, arresting its leaders, including Green Action president and future Mayor of Zagreb Tomislav Tomašević and actress Urša Raukar. The ramp was finished in 2011, completing the project. Further expansions of the shopping mall were prevented by a 2013 amendment to the general urban master plan. A related controversy arose temporarily in 2016, as Bandić administration allowed Horvatinčić to place a bar patio in front of the entrance to the Flower Square's Serbian Orthodox Cathedral, also hindering access to a public seating area. Bandić withdrew the permit after public pressure.

Bandić's other projects at Flower Square included an unexecuted project for canopy and floor heating in the adjoining Bogovićeva and Petrićeva Streets and closing down Cinema Europa, the home of Zagreb Film Festival, despite public protests. Bandić described the closure of the cinema as "stealing inema Europaaway from tycoon privatisation." Much of Flower Square today is covered by coffee bar patios, and few flower stands remain.

Zagreb Housing Development Model

At the end of the 1990s, the Croatian government began a programme of social housing called Subsidised Housing Development Programme (, POS), creating private-public partnerships to develop housing estates accessible to low-income residents. One POS housing estate was built in Zagreb: Špansko–Oranice, whose construction began during the mayoralty of Vlasta Pavić. Soon after Bandić's return to power in 2005, his administration bought out the government's POS projects in Zagreb, Bandić terming the city-led projects the "Zagreb housing development model" (). Despite Bandić prominently leading social housing projects for low-income residents, few such projects eventually panned out. At the same time, a glut of higher-priced housing was created. It was estimated that only half of all new flats built privately between 2001 and 2008 had been sold by 2013.

According to urban planners, City of Zagreb's private-public partnership model was a "complete failure". Despite the fact that POS estates residents were highly content with their new housing, in large part owing to the exceedingly low quality and availability of existing affordable housing and high demand for cheap flats, only three out of nine POS estates: Špansko–Oranice, Sopnica–Jelkovec and Vrbani III were built by 2015, while the construction in a fourth one, Podbrežje, finally began in 2016, but the plan was later amended and only a few buildings were constructed by 2021. 2014 research showed that only 6.1 percent of Zagreb's residents lived in POS housing, a far lower share than in social housing projects of other European capitals. The new estates were also criticised for high flat prices rivalling those in a cheap gated community in Sveta Nedelja, Zagreb County.

The plan for Sopnica–Jelkovec estate (later renamed Novi Jelkovec) was laid out in 2003 and amended several times. The location was set in the Sesvete industrial zone, on the site of the former Sljeme pig factory, whose grounds the city purchased in 1999. The project would create a new neighbourhood on a area that was to be connected to the city by an extension of Vukovar Street and a new tram line, with numerous amenities such as a library, a kindergarten and a community swimming pool. Bandić associated himself publicly with the project after taking it over from the POS programme. The City of Zagreb invested 2.5 billion kuna (€300 million) into the project, whose construction began in 2006. In 2009, at the opening of the estate, Bandić announced that "we almost solved the housing problems of most of agreb'sresidents ho could not afford a flat" In the next several years, the estate attained a negative reputation as none of the promised facilities and traffic connections materialised. Many of the residents were assigned flats lacking basic amenities such as internet and phone service. Bus lines were added to the neighbourhood only in 2013. An additional problem was poor construction causing water leaks. Bandić took a leading role in the allocation of flats, where inhabitants of the same social status were largely accorded flats in the same buildings, creating segregation and stunting social cohesion. Most of the problems were eventually remedied and the residents expressed satisfaction with the estate in a survey five years after its opening, but it could not shake off its initial negative reputation, leading to significant vacancy rates years after it was constructed. In 2020, the remaining apartments were offered at reduced rent rates to the Zagreb earthquake victims.

Construction of the Vrbani III estate started in 2006, after a 2004 design contest. Located near Lake Jarun, it was intended to be located between two new roads and a new park. It was also intended to feature a new kindergarten and elementary school. The amenities were only partially completed in following years, causing the residents to rely on nearby neighbourhoods for daily needs. The first flats were sold by 2006, when it came to light that some of the buildings were affected by severe tap water contamination with mineral oil concentrations over 500 times the legal allowance. Bandić was quick to dismiss the issue, lining up with mayor's office employees to drink from an affected hydrant in a publicity stunt, and assuring citizens that the problem would be remedied within days. Affected residents ended up relying for years on bottled water for all their daily needs except flushing toilets until the problem was remedied. Zagrebgradnja, Geoprojekt and Capital Ing, the companies involved in the construction of Vrbani III, were eventually found liable in court for the contamination. The city nevertheless continued to do business with the companies. Several of Bandić's associates, including Jelena Pavičić Vukičević would obtain flats in a Geoprojekt project, while Bandić himself reportedly had flats in Zagrebgradnja buildings. Zagrebgradnja and Geoprojekt were among the companies with whom Bandić conducted hundreds of unsupervised land swaps from at least 2005 until 2009, which would later be investigated by USKOK.

While not labelled part of Zagreb Housing Development Model by Bandić, Arena Zagreb and its surrounding neighbourhoods exhibited many related problems. At the onset of Great Recession, Bandić pushed for the construction of Arena Zagreb, one of several controversial handball stadiums which were opened in 2009 for the purposes of hosting the 2009 World Men's Handball Championship. The venue, which would house sports matches and concerts, drew controversy from the start, having been built at a different location and according to a different plan from the one chosen at the public tender. In addition, the costs required that it be occupied 250 days a year to break even. The arena was constructed by a private-public partnership which left the city paying for part of the arena's upkeep on top of renting it from the concessionaire, who themselves had expressed doubts in the venue's cost-effectiveness. The arena was paired with the adjacent Arena Centar shopping mall, and more construction followed in the form of Jaruščica housing estate and expansion of Lanište. Years later, the neighbourhood lacked basic amenities such as parks, schools, kindergartens and ambulatory care clinics, using up capacities of nearby older neighbourhoods. Public spaces were largely devoid of trees and instead dominated by parking lots, which were still insufficient for the needs of Arena Zagreb concertgoers, causing parking problems for residents. As part of the confidential concession agreement, the passage of Arena Zagreb into city ownership depends on regular payments of rental fees, which Bandić's administration did not service in timely fashion.

Transport infrastructure

Bandić frequently talked about the state of transport infrastructure in Zagreb, regularly announcing numerous capital infrastructure projects, which would allegedly remedy traffic problems in Zagreb. Some of these were urban motorways through densely populated Medvednica Foothills, a tunnel under the Medvednica that would connect Zagreb with Zagorje various tunnels and underpasses in the historic city centre, extensions of numerous arterial roads, such as Branimir Road and Prisavlje and building several new bridges over Sava near Jarun and Bundek.

A few projects were carried out: widening part of Ljubljana Avenue (which Bandić subsequently in a populist move renamed Zagreb Avenue), Radnička Road and Jankomir Bridge, and constructing Homeland Bridge and overpasses or underpasses at several high traffic junctions such as Remetinec Roundabout. A few new stretches of arterial roads were built, including filling a one-kilometre gap in Branimir Road, which took place from 2005 to 2016. Many projects were criticised for the poor quality of execution, such as an underpass which continued to flood regularly during rainfall despite specific repairs to that end, and the inconsistently marked cycling paths.

In 2016, the city renovated the pedestrian Sava Bridge, and in 2018 began works to renovate Liberty Bridge. In 2019, Sava Bridge was closed after a part of the pavement fell through onto the embankment below. Bandić said the bridge was safe and would be repaired within days. However, the failed pavement remained closed to traffic until the end of Bandić's mayoralty, at which time it was scheduled to be opened in 2022. After finishing the Liberty Bridge renovation in December 2019, the city began the renovation of Youth Bridge; this was also Bandić's last announcement of imminent works on his perennial Jarun Bridge project. The Liberty Bridge renovation was criticised by the Ministry of Construction and Spatial Planning for only renovating asphalt and railings instead of carrying out repairs to the dangerously corroded bridge structure.

Public transport

Most of Bandić's involvements in transport infrastructure concerned car traffic. For instance, while the cycling infrastructure was expanded, it was still fragmentary and cycling rate lagged behind other European capitals, despite Zagreb having one of the smallest shares of car traffic in the commute modal split. Although Bandić announced numerous new lines in the core of Zagreb's public transport, its tram network, his administration did not realise any of these projects, leading to an unprecedented 20-year drought in tram line construction. In 2000, Bandić opened two new tram lines, Dubrava– Dubec and Jarun– Prečko, construction of which was finished during the previous mayor's term. These remained the last new tram tracks in the city. The Prečko turning circle remains marred by a property dispute, which at one point occasioned a temporary closure. In 2007, the city announced construction of seven new tram lines "over the next few years", including lines in Trešnjevka, Lanište, Dubrava, and the never realised Jarun Bridge, two different lines to Zagreb Airport, as well as proposals for further tram lines in Trnje and on the never built Vatikanska Street extension. Bandić would announce construction on many of these lines again until the end of his mayoralty. Further tram lines and other projects, such as reconstructing the tram storage yard or an intermodal terminal at Sava Bridge, were announced, but no such plans came to fruition by the end of the mayoralty. When one of the perennial airport tram projects was brought up by news media in 2019, Bandić denied he proposed it. On multiple occasions since the mid-2000s, Bandić had presented plans for a subway network; in 2014, the plan involved a light rail line to be finished by 2017. Subway plans were revived after the 2020 earthquake, "so that trams would not cause vibrations n the apartments of the residents in damaged city centre buildings, per Bandić.

In the early 2000s, the City of Zagreb selected Crotram's TMK 2200 as the lowest bid for conversion of Zagreb tram rolling stock to low-floor vehicles; the first trams were announced during Pavić's mayoralty. Bandić pushed for purchase of TMK 2200s, which came to dominate the rolling stock, with 140 units by 2010. Though he announced and lobbied for plans to sell Crotram units in a number of European cities, including Stockholm, Sofia and Helsinki, the deals all fell through, with Helsinki residents finding the test units "cramped and noisy", while Osijek, the other Croatian city with a tram network, found imported trams to be cheaper. In 2017, wheelchair ramps were installed in the low-floor trams, since the tram floors did not line up with platforms.

One of Bandić's long-running projects was the reconstruction of the Sljeme cable car. The original Sljeme cable car was opened by Mayor Pero Pirker in 1963. After long calling into question the safety of the cable car, Bandić closed the cable car in 2007 after the failure of an electric motor. In 2008, plans were announced for a new, higher capacity cable car to be opened in 2009. Money continued to be spent on the project, which eventually expanded to a €45 million scheme which would have included an extension with Zagorje at Bistra. Eventually, construction began in 2019 and only on the original cable car's route, while Bandić announced a new tram line under Medvednica, which was also not realised. The cable car was to be opened in 2020, but the opening was pushed back several times, including for "strengthening steel reinforcements" after the Petrinja earthquake. Bandić was criticised by the opposition for continuing with the expensive project after the devastating March 2020 earthquake. A legal expert also characterised the cable car terminal as a plagiarism of the Deloitte building in Oslo, Norway. The city announced that they would apply for EU funding to finance the cable car. ZET took out a 537 million kuna (€72 million) long-term loan to finance the project. The cost overruns included some highly overpriced construction materials, totalling at 0.4 percent under the limit which would require additional legal oversight. Bandić disavowed responsibility for the overruns, saying the causes were outside his control. As of 2021, the cost overruns were under investigation by USKOK following a 7-hour YouTube video by a pseudonymous whistleblower, and the cable car remained under construction.

Parking garages and square remodelling

In an attempt to alleviate traffic problems, the city built a number of parking garages in the early 2000s. Garages were built under Lang and Kvaternik Squares, drastically changing their appearance. In the latter case, the garage came to dominate a larger plan for a makeover of Kvaternik Square, which followed the removal of its popular farmers' market. In order to accommodate car traffic, highly trafficked zebra crossings were replaced with underground walkways. The new square was widely criticised as it became unattractive to pedestrians and consequently remained empty. A survey found the new Kvaternik Square to be the most unpleasant square in Zagreb. Some reconstruction and renovation projects were also criticised for shoddy workmanship, ''e.g.'' the controversial British Square remodelling created a roundabout too narrow to be traversed by the city buses, while the fountain in its centre sprayed water on a nearby bus station (this particular remodelling was investigated by USKOK). The Homeland Monument on Stjepan Radić Square, unveiled in December 2020, was showing material wear already by April next year. The effect of these remodellings has been described as an "elimination of squares".

An early 2000s plan for a public parking garage for visitors of Children's Hospital Zagreb under the behind Mimara Museum ballooned into a—later abandoned—310 million kuna (€43 million) private-public partnership project with an attached shopping mall. An alternative deemed more attractive by the Zagreb leadership was a garage under the Republic of Croatia Square. Bandić lobbied for the controversial project which involved pedestrian entrances surrounding Ivan Meštrović's monument, Well of Life, while garage ramps would flank the 19th-century building of the Croatian National Theatre. Late 2000s plans called for three further garages in the vicinity of Flower Square and one under Strossmayer Square, as well as 16 more inside various Donji grad blocks. Most of these plans were abandoned after opposition by art history societies and intervention by courts, Ministry of Culture as well as SDP party leadership. One planned garage was constructed as a private venture, part of Centar Cvjetni (see § Flower Square affair). In 2010, Zagreb Assembly enacted an ordinance against parking garages in Donji grad, effectively putting an end to the developments, although Bandić and Zagrebparking officials continued to toy with the idea of a garage under the theatre for a few more years. The spatial arrangement of garages constructed (''e.g.'' the close by Cvjetni Centar and Tuškanac garages) has caused low occupancy at some of the garages while other parts of the neighbourhood lack adequate parking facilities. Several garages are located at the fringes of the central pedestrian zone; despite their original intent to alleviate congestion, they themselves have caused traffic jams and increase traffic in the city core.

In late 2017, the city started works to remove trees surrounding the Meštrović Pavilion in the middle of the Square of the Victims of Fascism, prompting protests against the city administration led by a citizens' initiative named ("Bring Back the Magnolia") after several old magnolias among many trees and bushes that the city intended to cut down, reducing the greenery around the Pavilion to a grass cover. Bandić and another city official were prosecuted for damaging cultural heritage and other accusations regarding the square remodelling. The trees, some of which were protected heritage and fixtures of Zagreb pop culture, were removed while the process was ongoing by the city authorities; some of the trees were reportedly "diseased", and some "grew too much", while the project documentation was contradictory on the others. The makeover also included removing Brač

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