Squatting in Albania

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Albania on the globe
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Squatted building in Tirana, 2018
informal settlement at Durrës
train station

informal settlements. One such area, Bathore on the periphery of the capital Tirana
, had 40,000 squatters by the early 2000s who successfully campaigned for better amenities. Other squatters occupied severely polluted post-industrial sites. The Agency of Legalization, Upgrading, and Integration of Informal Zones and Buildings (ALUIZNI) had legalized 16,500 homes on 152 settlements by 2009. As of 2020, 25 per cent of the population of Albania's cities lived in informal settlements.

History

In pre-Communist Albania, respect for private property was enforced and

sex workers.[1] Catholic organisations bought up land specifically to house Catholic squatters and refugees from the breakup of Yugoslavia also squatted in Albania throughout the 1990s.[4][1]

From 1990 onwards, mountain dwellers had been sending family members to squat land and grow wheat on formerly collectivised farms in the plains near

Kamza next to the Agricultural University of Tirana was broken up and given to workers, with land at Kamza Hill also being occupied illegally.[7]
: 11–13 

In April 1995, the government announced that the Bathore squatters would be evicted. In response, the squatters took the deputy prime minister Tritan Shehu hostage and the government was forced to back down, later claiming Bathore was a model settlement and promising to legalize it;[1] President of the World Bank James Wolfensohn later visited the site.[4] By April 2003, the 40,000 squatters were tired of the unmet promises and told the government that if progress was not made by 21 April they would start an insurrection. There was no response, so on 24 April they blocked the main road and marched on Tirana; the government then pledged to meet all the demands of the squatters regarding better amenities except the one requesting a hospital.[1] Squatters from other areas such as the 22,000 inhabitants of Kënet also protested and by 2012, Bathore had paved roads and a public transport link to Tirana.[1][4]

Elsewhere, other squatters were evicted. For example in 1995 soon after the settlers of Bathore fought off eviction, 170 squatters on the Lezhë plain were evicted.

Albanian Police battled hundreds of squatters when it enforced an eviction order in the northern suburbs of Tirana.[8]

Squatters have sometimes occupied severely polluted sites, such as a derelict factory in Vlorë or the former chemical plant at Porto Romano in Durrës. As of 2002, around 6,000 people were living on the latter contaminated site. Chemicals such as

chromium 6 and lindane were present at dangerously high levels yet the squatters distrusted officials who warned them and the state had no budget to secure the site.[9][10] The World Heritage Site Butrint National Park has been looted in periods of instability, so squatters there have been tolerated as guardians against theft and poaching.[9]

Recent events

During the 2005 parliamentary elections, the Democratic Party proposed legalizing the squatter settlements, following the ideas of Hernando De Soto. Once in power, it gave land titles to squatters, compensated pre-Communist owners of squatted land and upgraded settlements. The Agency of Legalization, Upgrading, and Integration of Informal Zones and Buildings (ALUIZNI) was founded in 2006 and three years later it had legalized 16,500 homes on 152 settlements. It had also identified 10,000 homes that were existing in unpermitted areas and had evicted homes that were blocking the construction of public infrastructure.[4] The director of ALUIZNI estimated there were 400,000 illegally constructed buildings nationwide.[11] As of 2020, 25 per cent of the population of Albania's cities lived in informal settlements.[12]

See also

References

  1. ^
    JSTOR 26396565
    .
  2. ISBN 978-0-7161-4194-5
    .
  3. ISBN 978-1-4798-3809-7
    .
  4. ^
    S2CID 153561635
    .
  5. ISBN 978-90-8964-355-1
    .
  6. JSTOR 23818809
    .
  7. ^ Felstehausen, Herman (1999). "Urban Growth and Land Use Changes in Tirana, Albania: With Cases Describing Urban Land Claims". Land Tenure Center University of Wisconsin–Madison. Working Paper 31.
  8. ^ Cota, Lulzim (24 September 1996). "Albanian riot police clash with squatters". UPI. Retrieved 29 August 2022.
  9. ^ a b Woodard, Colin (1 November 2002). "Albania: A tale of two cities". Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. 58 (6): 12–14.
  10. ISBN 978-3-642-12416-7
    .
  11. ^ Rontoyanni, Clelia (2012). Governance in the Protection of Immovable Property Rights in Albania: A Continuing Challenge (PDF). World Bank. p. 4.
  12. S2CID 228912384
    .
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