THE FIANTIAL TIMES

Families oppose €40m scheme for Albanian resort
By Kerin Hope

Arben Leka carefully unfolds a document brown with age and runs a finger down a handwritten list of landholdings that was drawn up in 1937.

The Lekas are one of 129 families fighting the construction of Albania’s first five-star tourist resort.The Tirana-based Riviera group wants to build an 800-bed resort at Kakome bay, an arc of white pebbles backed by olive trees, a swath of evergreen forest and the 13th-century convent of St Maria.

The company has fenced off the bay and blocked access to the convent.
“We all have title deeds, we’re defending our ownership in the courts, yet bulldozers have moved in and we’ve lost access to our property,” says Mr Leka, a civil engineer.

Dritan Celaj, Riviera’s chairman, says Kakome is public land. His company was granted a 99-year lease in 2004 to develop the bay but the €40m ($51m, £35m) project was put on hold after protests by residents and a change of government.

Vladimir Kumi, mayor of Nivice village, 6km from Kakome, where most of the protesters live, says most families have three titles to their land. One dates from the 1870s when Albania was part of the Ottoman Empire, another was issued by the land registry set up by King Zog in the 1930s and a third covers the 1994 restitution of land collectivised under Communism.

Land-ownership disputes are rife along Albania’s mountainous southern coast, mainly because of its potential for development as one of the last unspoilt stretches of the Mediterranean. The restitution of land to pre-communist owners remains a thorny issue, with many claims still outstanding. A new land registry set up with the assistance of foreign experts has a long backlog of title deed applications.

Albania’s judicial system has been criticised by the European Commission as weak and open to influence, adding to the difficulties of settling a property dispute through the courts.
The protesters, who refer to themselves as “Club 129,” say they have no objection to the development of “soft” tourism at Kakome – small independent guesthouses or hotels – provided their ownership claims are recognised and they have a stake in the project.

The right-of-centre government of Sali Berisha, the prime minister, opposed the project while in opposition. Now it backs Mr Celaj,.

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