TIRANA, Aug 13 – Tirana’s new Socialist mayor, Erion Veliaj, is touring the country’s largest municipality, introducing administrators he has appointed to run municipal units and laying out plans for urban and tourism development.
Veliaj is the first mayor to govern under the new territorial division, giving him a very large urban and rural area to look over, and he says integrating all the new units is key for the success of the new municipality.
Nearly one in three Albanians now lives in the Tirana municipality, which under the territorial reform merged the former City of Tirana with many of the surrounding rural municipalities.
In Tirana’s new northern development, Veliaj said a new boulevard will feature a large park six times the size of downtown’s Rinia Park.
He said the new boulevard would focus on new green areas instead of apartment blocks, with work expected to start soon.
“Our public promise is to expand parks rather than construction space,” Veliaj said.
Veliaj’s ruling Socialist Party has come under fire from the opposition for blocking work on the boulevard for years because the municipality was ran by Democratic Party’s Lulzim Basha.
Veliaj also announced plans for a reconstruction of the Pazari i Ri area to include attracting tourists to the city’s central food shopping district.
He also vowed to remove private businesses from public tourist attractions such as the Petrela Castle, where a restaurant has been operating for years, and which Veliaj said he would close down. The era of privatization of castles is over, Veliaj said.
The Tirana Municipal Council held its first regular meeting on Thursday to discuss budget allocation, distribution of social housing and funding as well as the appointment and approval of salaries for new municipal executives.
Veliaj was elected Tirana’s new mayor by a comfortable margin in the June 21 elections. He is a 35-year-old former civil society activist and the Socialists’ former welfare minister.
