The new mayor of the town of Sozopol on Bulgaria's Black Sea has presented the amendments to the urban zoning plan, which would see 10km of coastline between Sozopol and Chernomorets built up into a an upgraded luxury version of of Sunny Beach resort, Dnevnik daily reports.

Panayot Reizi, elected in November 2007, and new chief architect Roumen Aleksandrov announced plans for the construction of of beachfront villas, an aqua park, three golf courses and a small runway for charter planes. The proposed developments have been included in the revised general zoning plan of the city of Sozopol and would be presented to the municipal council within the next two weeks.

The planned holiday facilities would be built on privately-owned agricultural land that is not in regulation still. Construction will be limited in size to small farmstead-type houses with no more than 2-3 floors. Under the revised zoning plan, the Sozopol area should have no more than 150 000 population during the peak of the summer season.

An air strip would be built on municipal land between the villages of Ravna Gora and Izvor, with Reizi saying the municipality was looking for an investor to carry out the project as a public-private partnership. The existing Sozopol fishing port would be signed over to a concessionaire and developed as a yacht marina. The municipality said fund-raising was already under way to find financing for the infrastructure upgrade that the area would need in light of the large-scale development plans.

There was also considerable interest from investors for the St Ivan and St Kirik islands off Sozopol, Reizi said. The town hall wants to develop the islands, in particular St Kirik, which it wants to turn into an open-air archaeological site. The island is a former military base, now managed by the Ministry of Regional Development and Public Works.

The land earmarked for development includes the Gradina and Kavatsi camping sites, two of the last one remaining on Bulgaria's Black Sea coast. The construction of a large scale aqua park in Gradina has already started. The land is property of AKB Fores financial holding, Sozopol municipality, Duni joint venture and a firm owned by Bulgaria's richest man, businessman Vassil Bozhkov.
 
The only territories that were left outside construction plans are protected areas, forests and the quarry in Chernomotets. The town hall expects the construction of two area dams - Rakov Dol and Indzhe Voivoda, to kick off soon, while Austria's EVN, which owns the regional power distributor, also has announced sizeable investments in infrastructure in the area.