Municipality changed Pinskus plot designation during inspection

Širvintai district municipality changed the designation and permitted use of a plot belonging to Živilė and Jonas Pinskus while the State Territorial Planning and Construction Inspectorate was reviewing a construction permit, LRT reported, citing the Delfi news portal.

The permit had allowed the couple to build a residential building on land designated for agricultural use. A Delfi source said the permit appeared to conflict with legal requirements because the couple had publicly stated that they were not farmers.

The Construction Inspectorate confirmed that the planned construction of a detached house and garage did not match the plot’s designation and permitted use recorded in the Real Estate Register at the time.

“During the assessment of the legality of the construction permit, it was established that the construction of the planned single-family house and garage did not correspond to the plot’s designation, agricultural land, and its permitted use recorded in the Real Estate Register at that time,” inspectorate representative Viktorija Šinkūnienė said, according to Delfi.

She said the plot’s designation and permitted use were changed during the assessment and the Real Estate Register data were updated. After the identified violations were removed, the inspectorate concluded that the construction permit had been issued lawfully.

This is not the first violation identified at the Pinskus family homestead. In mid-July, the inspectorate halted garage construction there, and in early August it ordered the builder to demolish part of an illegally installed terrace.

Questions have also been raised about property belonging to other members of Širvintai district Mayor Živilė Pinskuvienė’s family. In early June, the Special Investigation Service began a pre-trial investigation into the circumstances surrounding the purchase of an apartment in Palanga by her mother, municipal council member Marija Gudonienė.

A Delfi investigation reported that Gudonienė may have bought the apartment in the Kunigiškės district for substantially less than its market value. The apartment was sold to her by businessman V. Guobys, the owner of Vilmstata, a company that had previously won public contracts worth millions of euros from Širvintai district municipality.

The civic initiative Viešpirkiai said Vilmstata had won a 2.4 million euro contract announced by Širvintai district municipality and later signed additional agreements that increased the cost of the work to 4.6 million euros.

According to Delfi, Gudonienė signed a purchase agreement in January 2024 for an apartment of more than 97 square metres in Kunigiškės. The reported developers were Guobys, his wife and another individual. Registry Centre data cited by the portal showed that Gudonienė paid 80,000 euros, or 824 euros per square metre.