Every Weekend-House Plot Near Smolare Waterfall Sold, with Land Reaching 30 Euros per Square Metre

The municipality of Novo Selo has sold every plot it put up for weekend houses near the Smolare waterfall on Mount Belasica. Demand was so strong that the price per square metre climbed to 30 euros. From ten plots at Smolare and three at Mokrino, the municipality took in 5.7 million denars, or around 93,000 euros.

Mayor Gjorgje Bozhinov says the money will go into infrastructure. "The municipality provides the complete infrastructure, and the money we received from selling the plots will go towards that. Next year we plan to offer another 20 plots at Smolare, for which there is huge interest and high prices per square metre have been achieved," he said.

At Mokrino, where the plots in the weekend settlement sold out last year, road infrastructure with street lighting was built with World Bank support, near the Pirgo picnic area and its medieval tower. Both settlements are meant to have standard-design houses, 34 in total.

The municipality's logic is clear. "One of the main problems for tourism here was that there was no accommodation, so visitors were mostly just passing through, without staying to explore what Belasica has to offer," Bozhinov says. The waterfalls and other natural sights of Novo Selo draw an estimated 15,000 visitors from Macedonia and abroad.

A municipality that says publicly how much it earned from land and where the money will go deserves credit for that. What remains to be seen is whether the standard houses become tourist accommodation or private holiday homes that sit locked for most of the year. That will decide whether Belasica got tourism - or just a new street.