This is more about planning than construction but some of you might just know how to guide us through getting this right.
Opposite and beside us are ruins. They are owned by an English man who previously described himself as the developer. His property then extended on further to include a smallish lot, a good sized field and a wood. He has sold off roughly two-thirds of the field to a local family who are now building themselves a new house. Good and fine. The man got the money from the land sale and is now spending the proceeds on converting a small barn into his 'holiday' home. It is smaller than the average sitting room, so we imagine he will eventually extend it.
The builders (British) are proceeding with the work. We know from our mayor that the planning permission has not yet been given. They know too but are going ahead anyway. We have had the mayor here to look at the state of the ruins, since when the man responsible for the maintenance of roads and verges has had a look (he is adjutant mayor) and another council member has had the mayor here again. The mayor wants the ruin down and has told the man. We wish to oppose planning permission on the grounds of wishing to see the ruin removed before we will remove any objection to planning being granted. The mayor and secretary have no experience of an objection of this kind at all but have offered to do it with us when the notices come back from the cantonal office responsible.
They are not even certain whether the deadline for putting in opposition is two or three months, so we want to check that one. Does anybody know?
Anyway, the present builders have long since advised that the ruin be demolished and the recovered stone sold, especially the lintels, cornerstones and so on that are quite valuable. The mayor has said he wants it down. So the man had a builder (another British man) over with a digger to do some work yesterday. The man was taken around to take a look for ten minutes or so and came up with the conclusion that the ruin is safe, since it has been up for hundreds of years it will not fall down. However, the builders doing the present work removed the roof three years ago and capped the walls and said then it was good as a temporary measure. They can see the deterioration. The man yesterday dismissed the stones and blocks that have fallen on the road and pushed back to the verges. Over this wet winter the deterioration has been clear in front of our eyes. We could sustain some damage if the buildings collapse but our fear is probably more because the road goes between two of the buildings. With three local building sites and to some extent with farmers’ tractors anyway, there is a quite substantial amount of heavy machinery using the road. That includes large trailers for earthmovers that have ‘bumped’ it. However the vibrations alone cause falls.
My wife went ballistic, after going to see the mayor yesterday, phoned the builder working there at present and told him that we shall oppose planning and gave reasons why. He said he would have a word yesterday afternoon but clearly called straight away. He was going to call us back yesterday afternoon but never did. He was told the opposition to planning was real and not just a threat unless we had 100% assurance the ruin would be properly dealt with. He has gone ahead with the work and now sees the prospect of being stopped and losing income. He helped out by submitting the planning applications and thought it was the usual whitewash. No need to wait. Yesterday he repeated what had been discussed in a single summary sentence to my wife who said that that was just about it. His mate and he are clearly going to now be worried.
Anyway, the developer who has now stopped talking about himself as a developer, saw that I had been working outside and guessed I had heard the whole discussion. He came to see me, probably on the back of the call he would have had from the builder, and described the man with the digger as an ‘expert’ who had said what I have already outlined. There is no need to demolish in his opinion. So now the mayor has had that back and is thinking about it.
There is a complication. There had to be. We have a strip of land we use partly as a vegetable garden. It actually belongs to the English man. Our rights there are that the cadastrial plans show our perimeter has a triangular shape that blocks two thirds of the accessible entrance to the strip. We also have the right of ‘servitude’ having continued to use the land as the previous owner did. He says that ‘servitude’ means nothing to him and does not count so that if he wants to do whatsoever to the land he does not need our permission. It is a lower terrace with dry stone walling against the main plot with a terrace wall down to the next terrace which is ours. The man is refusing to acknowledge our bit of ‘triangle’ despite all cadastrial plans being the same and telling us ours are wrong and that he will simply have ‘our’ strip dug up if the corner plot is developed. He would then, he threatens, block access when we want to redo the roof and end wall which are becoming critical and must be done sooner or later.
His whole lot next to us is non-constructible effectively as it is. Two branches of the main power line and one to a street light cross it, there are four telephone cables over it too and the water main goes under it. Apart from that, removing the terracing would create a slope that would inundate our house and back garden. So anyway, he said that we could come to an arrangement about the strip as long as we dealt with the geometre and notaire. He is clearly trying to buy us off so that he can ‘forget’ the demolition that his ‘expert’ told him is unnecessary yesterday. He has already tried to get €65k for a strip three metres wide and just over 30m end to end out of somebody converting a barn at the end of those strips. The man there has planning permission to install windows but without the land has no right of access to his own walls to maintain them, render them, keep vegetation under control or install his windows. He is utterly fed up after about 20 years of wrangling over that which has delayed the work for nearly 15 years. The strip of land for which €65k was asked is worth roughly €1200 as agricultural or horticultural land. We see him as an ‘ally’ although he has had enough of fighting and now he simply wishes to finish the work and retire there.
So it is a mess. We would like to see the ruin down but otherwise he can do what he likes with his conversion if he does. If we oppose the planning application we will have to fight over the strip of land, oppose any plans to get the whole piece of land next to us getting any kind of planning permission and have the man living here three months or more each year according to what he is now saying. Any advice would be much appreciated.