According to the Hungarian Golf Association's investment subsidiary, an 18-section golf course requires an area of 60-80 hectares - i.e. the seventy-hectare site envisaged for the King City site in Sukoró would certainly not be big enough for the following; a "professional 18-hole golf course", a mega casino, a covered ski slope, an "Olympian" ice rink stadium, an equestrian centre, a hotel with the capacity to accommodate 3,000 guests, a concert and conference complex, and on top of all this, the world's biggest thermal baths. Even if it were possible to purchase an additional ten hectares from the state, the site would still not be big enough for the project planned by the American-Israeli investment group hallmarked by Ronald S. Lauder, a media magnate, and businessman Joav Blum (Heti Válasz, 26 March 2009).

The executive summary of ‘King City as a tourist icon', written in a pathetic style, is thus flawed in its basic calculations. However, "variables" such as the day the resort would open were embarrassingly accurate (15 June 2011), the profit calculated for the first year (147.4 million Euros), as well as the number of visitors in the first year (5.1 million) and the number of new workplaces created (3,496). The business document did not mention that the ‘King City' might well have to reckon with competitors in the casino market; a similar-sized investment of 400 billion Forints - i.e. the cost of metro 4 - is promised by the investors of the Óbuda Dream Island, and in the Summer the construction of EuroVegas in Bezenye could commence. In the meantime, the Lauder-Blum project companies have as yet no independent seat. They registered their domicile in the lawyer's office of Károly Bárd, who is an ex-serving member of the State protection authority (i.e. the Hungarian secret police in the old regime). At the same time, on the official stationary, the future project is called King City. Elsewhere the name King's City is used.

At the beginning of this week, it transpired that the Public Prosecutor's Office in Fejér County thoroughly examined the "fraudulent" steps taken in the land exchange involving seventy hectares owned by the state (see in the frame). At the beginning of April - suspecting fraudulent mis-appropriation - it initiated criminal proceedings at the Central Investigation Chief Prosecutor's Office. This is strange, since up to now the MSZP government has been committed to managing a plan suspected to be one of property speculation. Moreover, one of the last measures of the Gyurcsány cabinet was to declare the development as an outstanding national economic matter. This means that the process of obtaining a licence could be decreased by as much as 12 months (in the first stage the Gárdony local government will not proceed as the building authority since this role will instead be filled by the Central-Transdanubian Regional Administrative Office with immediate effect). The haste in which the government acted from the beginning was discredited by the following; the public prosecutor has been contesting Blum's obtaining land in Sukoro for months, and the deadline set by the ministry of finance for a tender bid to establish a casino runs out on 18 May. In other words, the former prime minister Ferenc Gyurcsány and the new head of government, Gordon Bajnai, the outgoing minister of finance, János Veres, and Miklós Tátrai, the managing director of the Hungarian National Asset Management Company (MNV), have given a free run to investors by their actions, and cooperated in allowing a state supported gambling investment in the disputed territory. However, there is no guarantee that Blum and his associates will win the casino tender.

Of the civilians trying to protect Lake Velence, Nándor Fa, a yachtsman, was the first to suggest that a major property scam was underway, the end result of which would not be a "King City", but a housing complex at best. Today Gábor Molnár, the mayor of Sukoró and an ardent supporter of King City, stated to our magazine that since he is unable to see into the investors' wallets, he cannot judge what will be built on the project area. "If they don't realise what they promised, they won't be the first developers in Hungary who have bought land for one billion and then sold it on for ten," he added. The leader of the village attempted to be unambiguous at the same time: MNV exchanged the seventy hectares in Sukoró within its own scope of authority for Blum's Albertirsa-Pilis private property; "we were neither asked nor informed about this". There was nevertheless a degree of co-operation between Molnár and his associates and the newcomers. Joav Blum, respected as a "phantom" by the locals, registered himself as living in a hovel (in Kis Street)belonging to the village sheriff who is employed by the mayor (a local address is one of the conditions for making certain land deals). This fictional acquisition of a home came to the attention of the Székesfehérvár Public Prosecutor's Office, which as a result ordered an investigation on 20 March, as it suspected that public documents had been falsified. The mayor now claims that Blum recently purchased this house because he sees his future as being in Sukoró.

Péter Kertész, a local billionaire who through his information technology company (Idom 2000 Zrt.) is an insider supplier for the government, also believes in Nándor Fa's theory on property speculation. Kertész claims that years ago he tried to persuade Miklós Persányi (the then minister for the protection of the environment) to have the state register the seventy hectares in question under the community of Sukoró instead of allowing private investors to acquire it,"but even back then, we were informed that as far as the land was concerned, it was a done deal". Kertész did not pursue the decision-makers despite the fact that his wife's daughter - from an earlier marriage - was until two weeks ago the deputy-head of the Prime Minister's Cabinet Office. According to the entrepreneur, "the plan for the casino is just a blown up balloon, but it is certain that there will be something else on the shore of the lake".

Based upon all of this, it appears that the recipe for property speculation is unfolding;

» Dream up an investment for an expensive project (into which you cram all sorts of entertainment facilities which can freely spill out beyond the allocated area); if possible, they should be near a lake shore and a motorway, 30 minutes' drive from the country's capital! (The King City plan was a manifestation of this).

» In the shortest time possible, get hold of the area to be developed, cheaply and without competition. (The road opened up for a land exchange without competition after the property law of 2007 was passed).

» Make sure that the government classifies your dream as a priority development - fast tracking the official processes - but that it doesn't specify any obligation to complete the project. (This is how matters presently stand in the case of "king city".)

»  When you have all the licences in your hand, sell the vacant land! The difference between the sale and "acquisition" price can be tenfold, because you have had the state furthering your interests throughout, i.e. it over-valued your land as an outside player and qualified it as suitable for building a casino or a housing complex on.

1. JANUARY-SEPTEMBER 2007
The minister of finance, János Veres, prepared the property law and parliament passed it, the main stipulation of which is that the alienation of government property must be accompanied by a tender competition. The possibility of exchanging land - which Joav Blum later took advantage of in the case of the land in Sukoró - was inserted into the law as a legal loophole.

2. JUNE 2008
Parliament extends the effect of the law on priority national economic investments to investments realised on the basis of concessionary contracts (for example, the operation of a casino and the construction of an adjoining hotel complex).

3. JULY 2008
Miklós Tátrai, the managing director of the Hungarian National Assets Management Company (MNV), signs the land exchange contract with Joav Blum. The expert appraisers commissioned by MNV evaluated the businessman's plots in Albertirsa and Pilis at 787.4 million and the shore area of Lake Velence at 1.084 billion Forints; according to the asset management company's regulations - since the difference in the evaluation exceeds 15 percent - a tender must be announced for the sale of the property. However, the organisation responsible for the privatisation of the land disregarded this regulation. It was also problematic that Blum acquired the greater part of the plots he exchanged (namely the ones in Pilis) directly prior to signing the contract of exchange.

4. JULY 2008
Although the investor paid the difference between the 1.084 billion and 787.4 million, the property exchange deal was still one of disproportionate value. The price calculated by MNV for Blum's plots in Albertirsa and Pilis was extortionate at 430.5 per square metre, since in 2006 MNV's legal predecessor sold a similar plot of land in Monor, which was also on the route of the M4, for 19.82 Forints per square metre (which it must now buy back because of the motorway construction).

5. DECEMBER 2008
Gordon Bajnai, the minister for national development, proposed to the Fejér County General Assembly that the property obtained by Blum in Sukoró be reclassified into an area suitable to be built up.

6. FEBRUARY 2009
The minister of finance announced a tender for the establishment of a giant casino - within the framework of a concessionary contract - in the Central Transdanubian region. It is already a fait accompli that nobody else but Blum and co. will win the tender.

7. APRIL 2009
Signed by Ferenc Gyurcsány, a government decree declares that the King City project is a priority development. This lends impetus to last year's decision, according to which the effect of the act on investments classified as highly important for the "national economy" was extended to future casino cities.

András Zsuppán
itthon@hetivalasz.hu

Civil organisations assert that Lake Velence will be destroyed by the casino mega project planned on the shore at Sukoró. The Élőlánc Magyarországért (Live Chain for Hungary) and Angelika Association in Sukoró (in conjunction with several green organisations) announced a protest for 9 May on the northern premises of the VVSI rowing course. The building up of the area will have catastrophic effects on the environment, the habitats and the landscape, and it goes against the county's regional development plans as well as green legislation. On 30 April, the Fejér County Local Government decided to take the case all the way to the Constitutional Court.

At first sight, the seventy-hectare shore sector is a "vacant" lot; a grazing ground with copses stretching between motorway M7 and the waterfront, flanked by the premises of the water sports association on one side and by a small boat harbour on the other. The entire area here was consciously developed from the 1970's by filling in the swampy shore. According to István Balsay, the vice president of the county assembly, there are 83 bridges and culverts on the grassy part and about 600 million Forints worth of built-in value. There are mostly culverts, weep-holes and ditches, since two-thirds of the precipitation water of the northern shore flows into the lake from this side and it must be filtered to protect the quality of the water. In the past, the mud was stored in slurry storage tanks, some of which remained empty, and the earth that came from the next excavation of the lake bed could have been placed there. The Hungarian state has already placed four completed exploration roads, two ditches made for game protection and the shelter forests lining the motorway at Joav Blum's disposal. The shelter-belt is especially important from the point of view of environmental protection, since it protects the lake from strong noise pollution, from the north-western winds that would stir up the mud and thus destroy the reeds, as well as from the rubbish and dust borne by the wind.

The reedy area stretching on the other side of the small harbour has been designated to serve as an extension to the Velence Lake Bird Reservation Natural Protection Area for 15 years. At the time, the borders of one of Europe's most important bird reservations were drawn with a ruler and therefore there was a consensus in theory that the artificially created borders should be extended all the way to the natural ones. However, the process got bogged down because of the lack of political will. This reedy area is the nesting ground for a number of highly protected and endangered bird species, such as the great blue heron, the bittern, the little cormorant, the ferruginous duck, and recently for the glossy ibis, which can only be found in the Hortobágy in Hungary. According to those who know this area well, a great part of the aforementioned species are sensitive to loud noise and will leave their nesting grounds if there is any human activity around them.

If the shore was built up, the birds would not be the only victims; a significant part of the amphibians of Lake Velence pass the winter in the forest areas of the Velence Hills. Even now, these species - for example the brown toad and the forest frog - are decimated by the motorway and the railway traffic when crossing the shore sector, but at least they can still use the shelter bend, which has passed into the hands of Blum. The statutes of natural protection law stipulate a whole series of prohibitions in regard to this area: the lake is under "ex lege" protection as all natural waters), the entire Velence Hills region is qualified as a Natura2000 area under EU protection, and the area as the shore sector forms part of the national ecological network zone as a core area. The National Regional Development Act stipulates that areas like the one at Sukoró cannot be built up (or only in exceptional cases). However, the local regulations passed in Sukoró in 2003 designated the band along the shore as an area to be built up, although back then the plan was to start a project that spares the environment, such as a pool or a sports ground, and definitely not a giant casino, which means a 25-hectare indoor, covered area even if only 30 percent of the land is built up. In its regional development plan, which was underway at the end of 2008, the county wanted to regulate the shore sector at Sukoró as an unbuilt-up area, but the ministry for national development, then led by Gordon Bajnai, protested. In his letter of 24 February 2009, Péter Szabó, under-secretary in charge of national development, stated that regulations involving Sukoró cannot be made stricter retrospectively. The county accepted this and classified the plots there as "a traditional rural region of settlements" suitable to be built up. Obviously, King City, or a condominium, for example, do not fall into the category of traditional rural development projects.

Last year, the local government of Sukoró not only designated the band along the shore to be developed, but also a number of other areas on the hillsides around the village. The green authority was not enthused by the idea; they rejected most of the applications for reclassification. With regards to King City and the motorway node planned for the casino, the Duna-Ipoly National Park stated that "increasing the prescribed minimum percentages of built-up areas endangers the long-term preservation of natural treasures". During the land swap deal with Blum, the state even placed one section of the waterfront at the investor's disposal, despite the law stipulating that at least a 60-meter-wide section of the shores of natural waters must remain in public ownership. Because of this, the Chief Prosecutor of Fejér County protested against one part of the land swap. However, this can be corrected in a new legal procedure if there is a will to do so.

A giant casino or any other development would create the most negative impact on the landscape. This is not only an aesthetic category but a legal one, too. Since the 1960's, there has been a consistent intention to concentrate the resort type development projects on the lake's flat, southern shore. So far the northern shore has been preserved in its natural form: that of the Pannonian landscape with hills, church towers and reeds. According to the King City project, the American-style casino will be built slap bang in the middle of this area. The investors promise that "the Four Kingdoms and numerous tribes and cultures will be featured as part of the investment (...). The project will also introduce the traditions of other ancient kingdoms, such as those of the Chinese Empire, the Thousand and One Nights of Arabia and the legend of the Sahara Desert, as well as the kingdoms of Beauty, Fashion and Sports. Above all, the objective of King City is to present the public with the thousand-year-old culture, history and diverse past of Hungary."

Is there no other way?