Šventoji wants hotels instead of old country houses: some just “paint”

In recent years, Šventoji has been diligently trying to get rid of the image that there is only a faint shadow of Palanga.

The main square, a previously abandoned space where cars were parked, has been tidied up, turned into a paved place for children and parents, and invites movie screenings in the evenings.

Jūros Street has been renovated, but here are the schools and Mėguvos streets.

At the other end of the settlement, the Bird Trail awaits its turn, because there is still a gravel road there.

Representatives of the municipality assure that there is not enough money to do it quickly. So you have to set priorities and prepare projects.

Elijah wants independence

Changes in the Saint, however, do not need to be looked for much.

Approaching the settlement on the side of the Liepaja road, the town of Curonian opens before your eyes, and behind it, the Elija complex.

Vaidas Šimaitis, the businessman who built them and a member of the Palanga City Council, says he has come a long way, in which there was no shortage of legal disputes.

However, the lawsuits to reduce the height of the houses already built collapsed in the courts.

Now Elías is called the whole neighborhood around this complex and has deliberations, perhaps it could be a separate administrative unit instead of a part of the Saint.

V.Šimaitis does not hide that they are not just jokes. The locals are talking about it, and the politicians of Palanga also listen to the wish.

What would that bring? In this sense, V.Šimaitis is open, it is a matter of prestige.

It is that Elías (this is the old name of the Saint) in the sense of image is much more attractive than the Saint.

“It just came to our knowledge then. And today no one who goes to Elías says that he goes to the Santo, everyone here goes to Elías. I raised this issue in the municipal administration, then the idea came up, maybe we will change the name of the entire Santo to Elijah.

But people don’t want the whole Saint like Elijah, they just want their own room, – laughs V. Šimaitis. – People talk, ask. Basically nothing would change. But if such a territory appeared, like Monciškė, as well as Elijah, it would already be a different property map, a different valuation, a price. Those things are. “

But people don’t want the whole Saint like Elijah, they just want their own coin.

The vision is presented in the master plan.

However, the whole Santo is changing and will change in the future, assures the council member.

Accompanied by him, we walk along Jūros Street, which leads to one of the most important objects of Šventoji’s future: the seaport.

It is true that this project is old, it is constantly stagnant, but V.Šimaitis affirms that the current ruling majority in the municipality of Palanga takes the construction of a port very seriously.

And that when you search, it is possible to find money.

This is a plan for the future.

The closest works, which are now also reaching the municipality, are part of a general plan covering the areas in Šventoji, marked Š1 to Š4.

This detailed plan would replace the detailed plans currently being prepared for each parcel and would allow the formation of a specific vision of the Saint.

Then it would be that everyone who buys the plot would know in advance: “here we will no longer build small houses, but we will build villas and hotels.”

According to V.Šimaiitis, with the time when the seaport will be open, the hotels will be erected on Jūros street.

Several have already been rebuilt, and when they appear, the richest guest also arrives, spending more money.

“Hold on to the paint”

“Some of the cabins are still painted” is ironic when we look at wooden cabins, often very worn. – The city doesn’t want them. There are some cabins that don’t even have legal registration. This was mainly kept in the forests, where the forests were legalized as state property.

Still, some of the cabins are painted.

Once they were allowed to build. There are not the majority, there are more private ones, someone bought, handled the documents. But the wish is for hotels to be built on both sides of Jūros Street. There is a road to the port gate, and I think we will build the port, so both sides should be equipped with hotels. “

The small wooden houses, which are still an integral part of the Šventoji image, have been repaired in one place, freshly painted, and haven’t seen a hammer and brush in another year.

“Now we do not allow cabins, no device of this type, we prevent them from appearing in the detailed plans. Maybe someone needed such a law when 50 square meter buildings did not need any permits. It was a cross for the resort, very quickly these cabins, which were illegal, were legalized. Everyone painted, built, laid the stone, and registered very quickly.

It took almost two years to fight, we appealed to the Ministry of the Environment, we spoke with ministers, vice ministers to eliminate the spas of this order. If someone needs to build a house like this in the village, leave it, but then there is nothing left to manage in the complex. The commissioning of such small houses without permission has shaken construction enormously ”, V. Šimaitis opined on the inadequacy of the law for tourist complexes.

The municipality of Palanga would like the wooden houses not to remain completely.

Disappearing from the pine forest of Jūros Street, they would give way to new hotels, some of which are already planned.

V.Šimaitis offers a good estimate for people who stay in these cabins with no amenities.

It is possible that a room in a hotel costs between 60 and 80 euros, but there you will get a room with all the comforts, air conditioning if the day is hot and in June – breakfast.

As long as a person does not receive a house and receives a hotel, he will not return there; the test in that stalemate is the safest possible.

And in the cabin, according to the businessman, one night will cost you 10 euros per person, you may have to pay an extra for the bathroom, if you come by road, all this is multiplied by the number of people. Where else is breakfast and the hassles of a hot summer night?

“It simply came to our knowledge then. Whenever a person does not receive a house and receives a hotel, he will not return there, the test in that stagnation is the safest possible”, the businessman is convinced.

Therefore, he does not believe that the missing wooden houses strongly affect the habits of vacationers to choose the Saint.

Here, as with people standing on the road and offering accommodation: “We thought about how they would have to be evicted here. And you don’t have to chase booking.com erased everything. If someone else comes out, you probably won’t get that cabin even through booking.com rentals. “

If this plan is successful and several new hotels emerge, it will be a unique feature of Šventoji; Palanga does not have it either.

“Palanga has very few individual hotels that are still close to the sea. Right next to the door.

As I say, to this day, these shacks have helped keep the land undeveloped until the time when people have to change their mind. There are some people who need an apartment that go to private apartments, as the crisis time of this year has shown that those connected hotels (like our variant ‘Elijah’), where both hotel rooms and apartments, pay off “, assured V. Šimaitis.

These cabins helped keep all the land undeveloped until the time when people’s thinking had to change.

In his opinion, the resort cannot be such that there are private houses in the first row of the coast and hotels in the third or fourth row. The opposite must be the case.

It will connect with Palanga street

The pandemic and quarantine have significantly increased the demand for real estate in Šventoji (as well as prices).

“People who have a home in Tenerife or elsewhere have seen that they cannot go there. We also saw clearly in Elijah – that he was going to buy abroad, he bought here and he is happy ”, smiles V.Šimaitis.

There are still places in Šventoji where it is even difficult to understand why the street of the tourist village or the footpath looks like this.

Let’s say part of Mokyklos street is between Parko and Mėguvos streets, where there are no sidewalks or bike paths, so people have to go only on the road.

“Here is the Floros Simfonija on Jūros street, walking from Elijah. And on the other side of M calleguvos street, all those buildings are being bought successfully and here too the panorama will change”, he promises that the problem will be solved immediately, without However, the politician and the businessman do not bother.

In municipal plans, that Mokyklos str. part of the transformation is, just maybe not in the immediate vicinity. Next, however, there are even more serious ambitions, which have already been presented to the Ministry of Transport and Communications: they want to connect Šventosios Mokyklos street with Palanga Vytauto street. Then there would be no more discussions about the two cities.

What does the Saint lack?

According to V.Šimaiitis, SPA centers, even if people come in winter, they have something to do.