Bulgarian Land Development Starts Controversial Project

Residential property developer Bulgarian Land Development (BLD) will start work on its July Morning holiday village, the company said in a filing to the London Stock Exchange (LSE), where it is listed.Set to rise on a site near the town of Kavarna, in northeastern Bulgaria, the development has been put on the list of "destroyers of Bulgarian nature" as the investor plans to "appropriate the coastal line as well," environmentalists claim.Despite the strong reaction from conservation groups, the project was awarded all the necessary permits from the local authorities. BLD said in its statement that it secured enough funding to launch a scaled-down version of the project, whose first building would have 55 apartments, 41 of which had already been sold.The building, which will stand on an area of 3600 sq m, should be completed in June 2010 at a cost of about 2.2 million euro.The entire holiday village is planned to sprawl over 92 000 sq m, accommodating 351 homes, a spa centre, restaurants, small football pitches and mini-golf courses as well as five swimming pools. The total investment in the project is estimated at 40 million euro.