The construction watchdog: “Let’s build responsibly!”

Forty-four year-old Diana Varnaite, an alumnus of Vilnius University’s History department and currently director of Lithuania’s Cultural Heritage Department (LCHD), has had a perfect career in such a subtle and shake-resistant field as protection of cultural heritage. In fact, over 20 years, she has sat on nearly all the perches of the ladder, from the position of junior scientific worker in Vilnius Cultural Heritage Center to the main watchdog of the country’s cultural legacy. The road to the top, however, was quite bumpy – for giving the green light to construction of a prestigious hotel in the very heart of the Old City of  Vilnius, in 2005, she was fired by a former Culture minister. But this tough woman took the ministry to court, which reinstated her. She has been at the wheel of the LCHD for five years now and has been deservedly called one of the toughest public servants around. Varnaite agreed to answer The Baltic Times questions.

As a seasoned journalist with eyes constantly set on the work of public institutions, I can hardly find any other department under less scrutiny and pressure than the Cultural Heritage Department. No doubt, you are the one to feel the heat. However, many rebuke your heritage watchdogs for being too lenient and bowing to demands of construction developers.
Indeed, when it comes to cultural heritage, public interest is really very high. The public is monitoring the processes in the field very closely, make high demands for department officials and are very harsh on them and their purported or factual wrongdoings. We’ve been particularly closely monitoring the activities of our Vilnius and Kaunas affiliates. As you know, there have been several high-profile sackings; however, I see them as a necessity to clean our ranks and get rid of people who do not serve the interests of the state and public. More than that, those who expose a negligent approach to the cultural heritage. In this pursuit, probably as no other department, we have been constantly taking unpopular decisions inside the department, aiming to further reshuffle the team and to have only specialists who want to give all their intellectual resources for the sake of protection of cultural heritage.

However, some of the sacked high-rank officials, like the former heads of LCHD’s Kaunas and Vilnius affiliates, had led them for many years. It is hard to believe the department has not known anything of their violations, which boil down to the same thing - allowing construction activities, culture legacy-wise, in very sensitive cultural areas. How come the department, and you personally, closed your eyes on the huge public uproar-inflicting constructions?
The department has never closed its eyes on them. As a matter of fact, we have always paid heightened attention to the construction sites and the heads that drew fire. Yes, their actions were often evaluated controversially. And, yes, their decisions towards the cultural heritage were often wrong. Therefore, they received the department’s reprimands as well as administrative penalties. However, the department needed to have more time before I could apply the extreme punishment - firing them. Those who are familiar with the system of public service know how difficult it is to sack someone. No need to say termination procedures are strictly defined by several laws. To go back in history, the then-head of LCHD’s Vilnius territorial affiliate, Bitinas, whose activity had drawn a lot of negative evaluations, was sacked after the investigation revealed the vandalism on the wall paintings of Saint George Church and Monastery in Vilnius. The head of the department’s Kaunas territorial affiliate, Irena Vaskeliene, had been under a thorough scrutiny of the LCHD for allowing a glass construction in an old part of Kaunas, before she submitted a statement of resignation at the beginning of the year.

I suspect, with the construction boom during the pre-crisis years, it must have been extremely hard to curb illegal construction, violating cultural heritage protection laws. How do you subject the property owners and developers, whose private territories hold values of cultural heritage, to follow the laws?
The bottom line is this: we aim to nurture, not to punish the people. Therefore, in communicating with the heritage owners, we aim to individually explain to them the labyrinths of the legislation and help them find the right decisions. I can tell from my long work experience in the field that there are no unsolvable things, as only time and attention is needed in most cases. The department is not a bunch of penalty imposers. We want to help and educate people.

What kind of consultations do your specialists provide most often?
In most cases, people apply to our department and its territorial affiliates when they need advice in starting construction in a territory under protection of cultural heritage laws, also, when there is a need to put all necessary paperwork together when applying for EU financial support. Nevertheless, I admit that there is a strong opinion among cultural heritage owners that, no matter what, the department will say no.
I really want to deny the myth. On the contrary, the department specialists are determined to allow a lot, if the decisions do not harm the interests of the cultural heritage piece, i.e. are in accordance to the preservation principles and demands. It is sad to admit there are owners and proprietors who do not heed our remarks and requests, or, sometimes, demands, and allow the heritage to die.

And when do you have to be coercive to make the owners follow the rules?
If owners do not take care of their cultural heritage properties and allow deterioration and theft of the objects, the LCHD is forced to apply stricter punitive measures. But this happens in extreme cases, like, for example, when our specialists state a deliberate or reckless behavior, leading to deterioration and dilapidation of objects of cultural heritage. If you were to take a look at some of these kinds of objects, you would often find broken windows, doors ripped off hinges, nearly collapsed roofs and dilapidated building facades, even bushes growing on the roofs. No need to say that the territories aren’t fenced…
Upon seeing such cases, we demand the owners to preserve the buildings at least minimally, in order to let them last till better times.

And what excuses do the owners usually give?
In most cases, we hear lame excuses over shortages of financial resources. In reality, this reason is rare in explaining the neglect. And those who don’t have resources hand the property over. It is especially awkward to hear such lame excuses from well-known entrepreneurs, who have been known by the public as not the poorest people…

Speaking of Palanga, many here believe that the administrative penalties for cultural heritage law violations are too symbolic. Simply put, many owners of property under the protection prefer paying a fine of several hundred litas than removing the roof or tearing down a shelter.
Speaking of the resort, in most cases the violations stem from local residents’ will to improve their living conditions. Putting in plastic windows, changing the interior planning or building an illegal storage shelter and garage are probably the most common violations. I disagree that the fines are too small, or, as you say, symbolic, as they are of a significant size, up to 3,000 litas (over 900 euros). However, we see quite another scope of violations when legal bodies, or their representatives, are involved. As a rule, the entities with larger financial resources commit larger transgressions, and the fine often does not deter them from committing new ones.

Doesn’t the department go to extremes when, for putting a roof on a shelter storage, persecute an old lady, who happen to live in a territory under protection of a special territorial plan and cultural heritage protection laws?
In such cases like this, not only the special heritage protection plan is violated, like in your mentioned case in Palanga, but other legislation, determining construction, as well. These kinds of illegal construction take up a significant part of all law infringements. Courts, demanding liquidation of such illegal constructions, usually provide a very strong motivation. Most often, the defendant is not some fragile elderly lady, but quite educated and well-to-do and well-known.

Don’t you think, with the newest construction technologies being more environment friendly, the cultural heritage protection regulations should be reviewed and show more flexibility?
Construction technologies may have advanced, but I doubt whether they’ve become friendlier to cultural heritage. I’d say it’s not the technological achievements that matter as much as the locations they are used in. Speaking of Palanga, I want to deny the other myth, that the LCHD is prohibiting any construction in the historic part of the resort. In fact, the department allows everything that is in accordance with the territorial planning documents and other laws, defining the specifications of cultural heritage protection.

Again speaking of Palanga, real estate developers and architects wish to bring their bravest architectural fantasies to life, as a rule, in the historic part of town. Let me tell you straight: their comprehension of architectural quality is often measured only with square meters. As the aftermath of such thinking, we see in that part of town glass, plastic and metal constructions which, in fact, in official documents have to be one or two floors, but in reality they have a couple more floors. The LCHD says affirmatively: the historic center is not the right spot for such experiments. Also, it is not a sport venue where only meters matter. The department says: let’s build responsibly.