The real estate project aimed at the construction of a building instead of the park in Bucharest, rejected / Citizens came to defend the green space

The Sector 3 Local Council rejected the real estate project by which a real estate developer wanted to build a building with a basement, ground floor and two floors in the former Codrii Neamțului park, in Sector 3.

Several citizens attended the meeting and asked local elected officials not to approve the project. “I quit my job to come here. I'm a simple citizen who wants parks, wants no illegal construction,” said one of the participants.

Some of the councilors invoked the property right: “I remind you that, 500 years ago, the Codris of Vlăsia were here. What do we do?”, said Adrian Marius Pavel, PSD councillor.

During the meeting, 15 citizens took the floor and asked the local councilors not to approve the real estate project. Discussions on the project lasted over two hours.

“We wouldn't really want to sit at 50 degrees on concrete”

“I got off work to come here. I'm a simple citizen who wants parks, he doesn't want them to be built illegally. It doesn't matter what you do, expropriate, sue, we're interested in having green spaces, because it's about to be the hottest summer in history and we don't really want to sit at 50 degrees on concrete,” said Alexandru Ifrimescu, one of the citizens who asked the local councilors not to approve the real estate project.

“It's important to look into the future, for our children, for our grandchildren, what do we leave behind for them? Do we leave some barren concrete or do we leave some green areas? Maybe not maintained, because you can't build a park there, but at least a green area, so that a little bit of air, a little bit of oxygen comes in. Summer is coming. Everything that means concrete heats up to the maximum and suffocates us. Please insist on keeping these green spaces in the form in which it's them,” another citizen asked Matei Macri's councillors.

“We're going to buy clean air by the bottle”

“In recent years, quite simply, there is an assault on all pieces of green space. But do we really not think that tomorrow or the day after tomorrow we will buy clean air in a bottle, like in Japan? We complain that our children spend more time on tablets and phones and that they no longer go out in nature. Well, in which nature, good people? Please be aware of the fact that your vote has consequences,” said Rodica Negri, another citizen who participated in the meeting.

Another person asked the councilors for a political agreement, that they will not approve constructions on the retroceded piece of the IOR Park, in the Brâncusi Park and in the Codrii Neamțului Park, but also that they will look for solutions so that the green spaces return to the public domain.

“The community of citizens in Sector 3 certainly does not want these parks to be built, to be destroyed. We believe that the City Hall must look for and find solutions to restore these parks and I believe that there must be a political agreement at the level of Sector 3, that you will never allow the approval of urban planning documents on parks in the Sector that have been retroceded. I ask you to reject this project”, said Bogdan Stroe in the meeting of the Local Council of Sector 3, before for the project to be put to a vote.

Bogdan Stroe was also General Counsel, in the period 2020-2024.

Citizens from the IOR-Titan Civic Initiative Group also called for the rejection of the project.

“Please refuse this project. I also support property rights, but property rights do not allow you to build what you want. And this PUD is a derogation from the general regulation. Does our Sector need more shops, more traffic?”, said Cristian Şoimaru, president of the IOR-Titan Civic Initiative Group Association.

In the main, the councilors proved the citizens right.

“The legal situation of the land at the moment is under construction. At the same time, we know very well that, factually, as long as there was a park there, they cannot change the destination of the land from green space to anything else. That's what the law says,” said Andrei Stan, USR adviser.

“We reject the idea of ​​a retrogression based on criteria that we think”

However, there were also councilors who invoked the real estate developer's property right.

“We would like them to be parks, but let the owners do them. I think it is a serious interference in property rights. I mean, we reject the idea of ​​a retrogression based on the criteria that we think. We are not authorized to determine this. A court has determined. That it seems right to us, that it doesn't seem right to us, that is the legal situation”, stated Ciocoi Cristian, local PMP councilor.

“500 years ago, the Codris of Vlăsia were here. What are we doing?”

I remind you that, 500 years ago, the Codris of Vlăsia were here. What do we do?”, said Adrian Marius Pavel, PSD councilor.

He declared that all private property within the radius of Bucharest municipality, at one point in time, belonged to the state.

“Through court decisions, through appropriation, through different methods, the property returned to natural or legal persons. I like to go to the park with my children, but I will tell you again, Brâncusi Park, when I was a child, that I grew up there, it was not a park (…) The green areas were established at the time when the documentation for the PUG was drawn up (…) Some gentlemen, sitting in an office, determined that it is a green area, for example, at my place in court”, said Marius Pavel.

“I reject the idea of ​​expropriation”

Regarding land expropriation, here too opinions were divided.

“I totally reject the idea of ​​expropriation of some lands where the green space was intentionally destroyed to build commercial spaces or capitalize on them. We are talking about encouraging some people to destroy the green space just to receive some money from the Bucharest City Hall,” said USR councilor Andrei Stan.

“It's a serious interference with property rights”

On the other hand, Ciocoi Cristian, PMP local councilor, said that it can be a solution.

“We must also look at the possibility of expropriation if we want to make a park. I understand that we would encourage certain owners who have retroceded land to channelize in this direction, but if we reject the idea of ​​expropriation, the owner's obligation remains to transform a land into a park. Either way, this is a serious interference in property rights,” said Ciocoi Cristian, local PMP councilor.

After all these discussions, a citizen accused the councilors of not defending the public interest.

“I had the feeling that I am here at a debate of the real estate developer's interest brokers. If you really wanted this discussion to be balanced, you should have invited the developer and he alone to support his idea and not certain councilors. However, the role of this Local Council is to keep the public interest,” declared Mihaela Lungu.

The representative of the real estate developer stated that he does not want to build a hypermarket on the land, but a proximity shopping center.

“Upstairs is a shopping center with playgrounds for children, with an area for after school if needed. The whole terrace is set up as a green space for all the residents of the area. There are a lot of planted areas. So it's not an uncontrolled hypermarket. It's a different concept,” said the developer's representative.

Moreover, he cited a paper from the Environmental Guard where it says that the land is not green space.

In the end, the project was rejected. 3 councilors voted for, 16 against and 11 abstained.

About the real estate project

According to the Detailed Urban Plan published on the website of the Sector 3 City Hall, the land on which the building with commercial spaces is intended to be built has an area of ​​2,976 square meters in documents. The proposed urban indicators are: Land Use Coefficient – 1.3, Land Occupancy Percentage – 45%. The building will have a basement, ground floor, first floor and technical floor.

The Town Hall of Sector 3 gave urban planning approval for this project on February 24, 2026.

The land is located at the intersection of Codrii Neamțulu Street and Postăvarul Street. Until 2017, at least, as seen on Google Street View, there was a park there. There were 79 trees on the land. In 2022, more trees were cut down without notice, as HotNews wrote at the time. Deforestation also took place in 2025.

The urban project, in a different form, came to the District 3 Local Council in 2021 and 2022, but was rejected. Then they wanted to build a shopping center with mezzanine, ground floor and first floor.