A non-functioning handicapped platform tied with a mud rag to an underpass railing and propped up with a car tire. This sight has become a symbol of the prison in which disabled people are forced to live in Varna. A year and a half after our first publication on the subject, the picture is only seemingly different. The same handicapped platform in the underpass of Blvd. “Levski” next to sp. “Sportsman” is now without the superfluous attributes. But still as unusable and inoperable as under the previous mayor.
A total of 55 disabled stair platforms have been installed in 29 underpasses in the city. Most of them were installed under the Varna Integrated Urban Transport project, the total cost of which amounted to 78.5 million euros. And they have never worked. An inspection by the control authority in 2019 found that some of them were in disrepair and imposed a penalty on the municipality. To this day, the stair platforms in the underpasses remain unusable. However, the municipality pays about BGN 10 000 monthly for their subscription service. If the amount is added to the spare parts provided for repairs in the contract with the contractor, the amount jumps to nearly 200 000 BGN per year.
Mayors change, the company – no
The maintenance of the platforms in the underpasses is carried out by the company “KONE”, it is clear from the signs on some of them. The situation was the same under the previous leadership of the Varna municipality. The new contract with the contractor is from June last year with a term of 24 months. This is also the only company that submitted documents for participation in the tender within the statutory deadline – until 15 April 2024. The total value of the contract is up to 326 040,00 BGN excluding VAT.
We have reported non-working platforms in several underpasses to the company’s national telephone number. The switchboard employee was never able to locate the rigs on their system. We searched for them as they are written in the contract with the council – underpass sp. “Javor”, “NRA” underpass on Ave. “Eighth Primorski Regiment”, underpass by the magazine “Yavor”. “Sportsman”. After a 6-minute search the woman concluded, “The municipality maintains them, we repair them”.
We call Varna Municipality. The officer on duty asked for the exact names of the stops where the platforms were not working, the last name and phone number of the person who had given the signal and cut it off. A week later there is no result.
According to the Municipality of Varna, there are 29 working platforms for people with disabilities. Although these are a little more than half, our team checked several along the boulevard. “Eighth Primorski Regiment” and Blvd. “Levski” and did not come across any functional ones.
According to the contract with CONE, the response time for an emergency shutdown of facilities with people on them is up to 30 minutes, and up to an hour in cases where there are no passengers to release.
For every 30 minutes of delay, the contractor is liable for a penalty of 0.1% on the value of the monthly subscription fee for the facility concerned, but not more than 5% of the contract value.
The penalty shall not relieve the contractor of the obligation to perform the services under the contract. The contractor shall repair the facility within five working days. In the event of delay, a penalty of 1% of the cost of repair for each day of delay shall be payable. In the event that the provision of services is suspended through no fault of the contractor, the liquidated damages shall be 10% of the total contract amount.
Performance shall be supervised by the Municipal Directorate of Engineering Infrastructure and Public Works. The Municipality did not provide us with an answer whether any irregularities have been detected and whether any sanctions have been imposed on the company since 1 July last year.
Just over 26 000 people with permanent disabilities, including wheelchair users, live in Varna. The users of the social service “Assisted support” at the Home Social Patronage are 389.
Before we get to the subways
Before they get to the subway, however, these people have to get out of their homes. More than 90% of apartment blocks built in the last century do not have handicap ramps.The slope of the staircases from the lifts to the ground floor in most of them is such that the only option is an electric stair platform similar to those in the subways.Their cost, excluding design and installation, is around BGN 30 000, our research showed.A National Programme for Affordable Housing and Personal Mobility has been adopted to fund them in 2019.
It allocates up to 100 000 BGN for such facilities.
We went through the steps to apply for the programme to install a stair platform in a block of flats in the borough. “Gull”.
The first institution we visited to find out about the conditions was the office of the Social Assistance Directorate in the Primorski district. The employee gave the impression that she was hearing about the program for the first time and sent us to wait at the door. After 10 minutes she came out with a piece of paper on which was written. 20.20.2025 “Triaditsa” № 2, Sofia, for home ownership; on the spot, by mail, by courier”. The information was already known to us from the Internet – the deadline for application, the address of the Social Ministry and how to send the application documents.
Institution No. 2 – Primorski Town Hall. We asked for advice on what documents are needed to place a lifting platform for the disabled on the staircase from the elevator on the first floor to the front door of the block. After touring two offices in the architectural department of the town hall, we were sent to a large municipality for a visa and building permit.
In addition to designers and a dozen documents, the city’s architectural department advised us to hire a supervision firm.Otherwise, we have to wait for a ruling from an expert council and risk missing the program’s deadlines.
Are you building a ramp or building a block?
It turned out that in order to install a simple stair ramp in a block of flats, an investment project with documents as for a housing cooperative is needed. The bureaucracy of implementing such a project is so big that it actually hampers any initiative.
The owners’ association of the building, in which a person with difficulties lives, has to submit 13 documents on paper and 6 electronically. It has to carry out a “market survey of companies for accessible environment facilities” in order to submit three offers from manufacturers, one of them from a Bulgarian company.
In order to start the development of the investment project, a design visa is required from the municipality. The term for its issue is 1 month and the fee – 40 BGN. The next step is the preparation of the designs, coordination of the electrical design with “Energo Pro”, a report by a supervisory company and its submission to the municipality. If there is no need for corrections, there is a 4-week wait until the building permit comes into force. To this and the investment project are added the remaining 11 paper documents. The preparation and issuance of all documentation is paid by the applicant. This must be the owners’ association of the apartment building, i.e. jointly by all residents. In practice, however, the entire procedure and its financing falls on the shoulders of those concerned – the hard-to-house people in the building.
In the best case, the fees of an architect, a structural engineer and an electrical designer for the investment project cost between 800 and 1000 BGN. The cost of the supervising company for a similar service is about 500 BGN. To the amounts are added the municipal, state and notary fees for the documents. However, the biggest problem does not appear to be financial. In both the urban environment and the documentary one, there is no “beaten track” or accessibility to guide wheelchair users and their relatives on how to make their lives easier.
Only 8 projects in 2 months
The entire period for which the programme is open once a year is 4 months. This year the deadline is 15 May. In the middle of the period only 8 project proposals have been received – from Pleven, Sofia, Razlog, Dupnitsa and Ruse and none from Varna.
Last year, 65 facilities in 54 residential buildings where 73 people with permanent disabilities live were financed under the “Accessible Housing Environment” component. They totalled just over BGN 2 million.
In the entire period of the programme’s operation, only a few buildings in Varna have received funding. The main reason, apart from bureaucracy and lack of capacity, is that people with disabilities, who are the main stakeholders, rarely have the physical opportunity to be active and work with the condominium owners on the implementation of the project. Therefore, in Burgas, this function has been taken over by the municipality, which drives the procedure and documentation when the owners express their wish.
This does not happen in Varna, our inspection showed, although 20 years ago the City Council adopted an Ordinance for the construction of a common accessible environment. According to Article 4 of the regulation, the urban environment shall provide for the mobility of all population groups, including people with disabilities, including on streets and pedestrian areas, on stairs connecting different levels in the urban environment and on underpasses and overpasses.
“The environment for people with disabilities is not only inaccessible, but I now define it as hostile. On days when it is very cold and icy, I am practically a prisoner at home. This is for all the tens of thousands of wheelchair users and children in the city. The platforms don’t work, the elevators are scary. On the streets, you often have to walk in the lane. It’s dangerous and it shouldn’t go on like this”. These are the words of Kalina Tsacheva, who for several years has only been able to leave her home in a wheelchair with the help of relatives and friends. And the few steps from the lift to the front door of the apartment block remain a huge obstacle. For some – insurmountable.
