Residents of the Trnodol district in Skopje are accusing Karpos Mayor Stefan Bogoev of attempting to open their quiet hillside community to mass development and is trying to allow politically linked businessmen to build large residential buildings. Bogoev’s attempt led to an incident on Tuesday when a Karpos municipal representative came protected by “muscle” to a meeting with the angry residents.

A local resident today accused Bogoev of clearing the way a company that already destroyed a park in the Aerodrom district to build a huge apartment complex to come to Trnodol next.

The owner of the plot of land you plan to open for development is ZSF-KOM, the same company behind the Majcin Dom buildings in Aerodrom. And you say this is not the urban construction mafia, this is ghood for he residents. Have you even bothered to estimate what this influx of new residents will mean for the traffic infrastructure, for our schools and kindergarten, for the electric supply..?, asks Zvonko Dimitrovski.

Mayor Bogoev was suspected of being close to Bojan Jovanovski – Boki 13, the man at the center of the growing racketeering scandal. Bogoev was interrogated after it was alleged that he was helping Boki 13 get lucrative real-estate development opportunities in Karpos.

Meanwhile, in neighboring Centar, the Chamber of Construction is calling on the municipal authorities to end their ban on new construction. According to the Chamber, they face delays in their construction plans which now take five times more than usual to obtain.