The evaluation of the spatial planning activity and policy is based on a detailed monitoring, within the frames of which was worked out a great volume of information: data for spatial plans, partial modifications, etc., provided correctly by the Municipality of Nessebar, as well as a number of letters from the archive of NIICH. As a result the following positive aspects of the actual spatial planning policy of the examined territory could be pointed:
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There is a legitimate (though rather old-fashioned – from 1981) building and regulation plan of the Ancient City of Nessebar, considering to a great extent the values of the property (SCHEME № 7: Actual Building and Regulation Plan of the Ancient City of Nessebar). In progress is the development of the Master Plan of the Municipality of Nessebar.
Scheme 7: Actual building and regulation plan of the Ancient City of Nessebar (1981)
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The Municipality is aware of the negative consequences of the former spatial planning policy and during the last years creates conditions for their restriction. The 35th Session of the World Heritage Committee established that measures had been taken for terminating of building permissions in the property and in its protection zone until proceeding of the protection regimes.
Along, the analysis of the spatial planning activity and policy states the following problems in this field:
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The methods and principles of integrated conservation are not applied which requires the conservation of the cultural heritage to be considered in “all stages” of the spatial planning activity.
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The spatial plans and especially – their numerous partial modifications – very often do not consider the protection regimes (boundaries and prescriptions) of the property and its protection zone. In a number of cases have been carried out spatial planning activities which were not coordinated with the Law.
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There is no unity in the system of spatial plans at the various levels concerning the property. The Territorial Master Plan of the Municipality of Nessebar (1998) does not create basis for implementing of policy for spatial planning and conservation, in conformity with the statute of the property. The assignment for the Master Plan was not co-ordinated and authorised by the Ministry of Culture, while the very plan (preliminary project) did not consider sufficiently the statute and the outstanding universal value of the property. Plans do not consider the necessity definite functions (for instance parking) to be moved out from the Ancient City of Nessebar and be executed in the larger territorial context; they do not offer decisions also for the better interrelation between the property and its immediate area.
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There is no adequate spatial planning policy and activity in the property and its protection zone. The valid Regulation and Building Plan from 1981 is already out-of-date – adopted before the inscription of the property, it does not consider the parameters of its outstanding universal value, the new circumstances that occurred in the last 30 years, as well as the radically changed rules and regulations in the field of the spatial planning activity.
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The spatial planning activity on the implementation of the valid plan is inconsistent. The partial modifications of the valid plan (for more than 100 regulated plots in the Ancient City of Nessebar, part of which not authorised by the Ministry of Culture) are practice that compromises the spatial planning policy and threatens the outstanding universal value.
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The inconsistent spatial planning policy threatens the role and functions of the protection zone of the property: the spatial plans consider the building of the part of the area located in the New Town; a new harbour is built creating conditions also for new construction; the windmill (heritage site) is damaged; part of the protection zone is built-up – in the southern coastal territory of the peninsula.
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There is no full cadastral and specialised map base: specialised map and register for the immovable cultural heritage in the property, cadastre of the underground galleries and specialised map of the underwater archaeology in the aquatory of the property.