DEDEMAN ENTERS SOFIA
Turkish hotel chain Dedeman Hotels & Resorts International will take over the management of two Bulgarian hotels, owned by Turkish businessman Sudi Ozkan. The hotel operator has already placed job ads to fill available vacancies in Bulgarian papers. Dedeman will take over the Ozkan hotels – the 600-room Sofia Princess in the Bulgarian capital and the 200-room Trimontsium Princess in Plovdiv – in early March. The Turkish operator intends to invest in upgrading the two hotels which are currently rated at four stars.

LOCAL TAXES ILLEGAL
Local taxes in Sofia for this year might turn out to be unlawful because the Sofia municipal council has failed to observe the deadline, February 29, for announcing the new rates. Collection of local taxes should have started on March 4, but the new rates haven’t been published anywhere. The councillors said that they “have stopped the clock” and will continue work on the taxes and the Sofia budget at the council’s next session on March 6. “Stopping the clock” is practice is used in Parliament, but only to extend its sessions within the range of one day. Delaying by one week was too much and because the councillors have missed the deadline, tax rates should remain the same. Failing to publish the ordinance on local taxes by the deadline will result in chaos on the property and cars market, where the greatest number of deals are signed every day.

SUBURBAN AREAS FACTOR
The lack of empty construction plots in Sofia and the resulting high prices are driving investors beyond the city boundaries to suburban areas in search of available building space. Unsurprisingly, the capital is the most densely populated and built-up area in the country, whereas suburban villages in the Sofia region are one of the country’s most sparsely inhabited areas. According to the provisions of Sofia’s new master plan, in 15 years’ time about one third of Sofians will live in the city’s suburban areas and villages, Kapital weekly said. The new zoning concept favours development to the north and Sofia’ s chief architect Petar Dikov has been re-iterating that the northern areas would see a drastic face-lift to emerge as a prime location.

MUNICIPAL HOUSING PRICES
Sale prices of municipal apartments in Sofia will rise by two to 2.5 times, depending on their location, according to the amended ordinance on prices of municipal residential property, adopted by Sofia municipal council on February 28. Rents of municipal dwellings will rise by 30 per cent, the city hall secretary Rossen Zhelyazkov told reporters, as quoted by Bulgarian news agency BTA.
Compensations for property swaps, when the municipality takes over private property for the needs of its projects and exchanges it with another property plus compensation, will vary between 30 to 40 per cent of the value of the total built-up area, depending on the property’s location, Zhelyazkov said.