On 20 May around 4000 people marched to Zagreb City Council and demanded the resignation of mayor Milan Bandic over plans to build an entrance ramp to an underground car park in Zagreb’s Varsavska Street pedestrian zone. Piling up suitcases outside the council building, the protestors demanded that the mayor pack his bags and find a new job.

The protest marked the culmination of a dramatic week, in which work on the HOTO group’s contested “Cvjetni arcade” development was blocked by activists from Green Action and the Right to the City initiative and the site occupied.

Early on 17th May contractors for the City of Zagreb, acting in lieu of the private investor, erected a metal fence around the Varsavska Street – a public space soon to be privatized and turned into an entrance ramp for the private investor’s underground car park. The entrance was blocked by activists in the morning, who were joined at around midday by several hundred residents who hammered on the fence and eventually pulled it down and occupied the area. Activists have been camping out there in shifts since then and are staging daily cultural events.