This is a story about the destruction of trees in Varna. It lacks fiction and journalistic commentary. Just facts. It takes place on “Zelenika” street in Tsvetnia quarter. (Names lack irony.)

A story about an (un)accidental fire

“Come, come see the view from above!”. One of the residents of block 25 points to the earth mounds, the trench and the excavator. The painting is found from the third floor of the staircase of the panel block. In this place less than a year and a half ago there were 22 trees. It is now a field being prepared for construction.

The date is April 30, 2022. The media reported a large fire near the First Language High School in Varna. It is mentioned only about burnt down shacks. The pre-trial proceedings are being conducted against an unknown perpetrator.

In fact, two 9-meter tall Atlas cedars, five 8-meter eastern thujas, ten white acacias are completely burned. Two 12-meter-tall sycamores were severely burned and subsequently removed – a species categorized as “almost endangered” in the Red List of Bulgarian higher plants. The same fate befell two 8-meter sycamore trees.

“I went out on the terrace in the first minutes and saw the trees in the middle of the field on fire,” says Diyan Dinkov from block 25 a few months back. He took a picture of the fire with his phone. “They said some kids had set them on fire. After the fire, they removed everything very quickly. The investigation was against an unknown perpetrator who was never found,” the man shrugs.

Coniferous or deciduous? – For the Municipality of Varna, it does not matter

The constitutive protocol for the burnt tree vegetation, prepared by experts of the Primorski region, is dated May 12, 2022. A day later, the municipality received an application for approval of a complex project for an investment initiative “Mixed-use building” and the issuance of a permit for construction, as well as for removing tree vegetation from the construction site.

On December 12, 2022, the municipality prepares a report, drawn up by a landscape architect from the “Architecture, Town Planning and Urban Planning” Directorate, to remove 11 more trees from the site in connection with the construction of the building and the adjacent parking lot. On January 31, 2023, an order was issued to the mayor of Varna, through his deputy Hristo Ivanov, to remove five long-lasting decorative trees, among which three 100-year-old cypresses and one half-century-old sycamore, plus 6 more acacias, nettle, mahalebka and fruit . Eight of the trees fall under the protection of Ordinance 1 for the protection of green areas and ornamental vegetation. In the vegetation removal order, the deputy mayor disregarded the landscape architect’s report on the type and number of trees planted, but required the compensatory program to include 33 Arizona cypress conifers 150-175 cm tall. According to the recommendation of the specialist, each of the cut broad-leaved trees must be compensated with 5 medium-sized broad-leaved species with a height of 1.8-2.4 m, and the four pyramidal cypresses – with 5 conifers each. To cut down the nettle requires planting 3 deciduous trees with a height of 1.8-2.4 m.

In the mayor’s order, it was determined that the investor should reforest another area, namely between “Osmi Primorski Polk” and “Hristo Smirnenski” Blvd.

It is not the discrepancies between the landscape architect’s report and the vegetation removal and compensation order that are of concern to the people of Zelenika Street. The residents of blocks 22, 23, 24 and 25 have concerns that all the green vegetation of over 50 perennial trees, south of the fence of the First Language High School will be cut down for the creation of a new street serving the investment project planned in the Detailed Development Plan of the area.

How for more than 50 trees no place was found on the map

As early as 2021, people submitted two reports to the Municipality of Varna that in the map of the street landscaping of the 25th micro-district, published on the website of the Directorate General of Public Administration, more than 52 trees were not marked along the southern fence of the First Language High School. in the section between “Podvis” St. and bl. No. 21 on Zelenika St. Among those missing from the map are valuable endemic species such as 6 lindens, 15 Japanese maples, 3 sycamores, 5 ash trees, etc. And they insist that it be fixed.

Two years later, when asked by EcoVarna under the Law on Access to Public Information, the municipality replied that they lacked information about the types of trees in the municipal property, which is located between the First Language High School, the construction site and Zelenika Street. Available vegetation is marked only by symbols and location on the green register map.

“These are trees from our childhood, more than 50 years old. Here, where the parking spaces for the construction site are planned, there was a children’s playground,” recalls Diana Velichkova from block 22 on “Zelenika” Street.

“Our goal is to preserve the trees. But we have concerns about our parking spaces and about the stability of our blocks during the actual construction of the new building,” says Diyan Dinkov from block 25.

When the Municipality adopts the new Detailed Development Plan and Plan for Regulation and Settlement