Environment Commissioner Antonia Theodosiou on Friday put forward a list of suggestions which the town planning authority could utilise to ensure the alleged “illegal house” being built near the Kryos river near Platres better adapts to the local landscape.
The commission released her suggestions on Friday, saying the town planning department “has at its disposal capable tools which could be utilised so that the building would better adapt to the natural conditions of the plot”.
Those tools, they said, included the possibility of using the rocky substrate of the plot as the foundation of the building to avoid the need for excavation, to place the building on the plot’s boundary closer to the car park so as to not be so close to the river, and to calculate the maximum permitted height of 8.3 metres from the bottom of the building.
At present, the building has measured the 8.3m height from the highest point of the plot, meaning that the actual height of the building exceeds the limit.
Changing this fact, Theodosiou said, would bring the building closer into line with “traditional architecture”, which, in conjunction with the other suggestions, would allow for an “excellent adaptation to the landscape to be achieved”.
Theodosiou also said the building’s architect George Papadopoulos had visited her office to discuss proposals to reduce the damage caused by the building, and that he had said small stones from the excavation “may have flowed into the river”.
She also referred to a forestry department report on the building which clarified that no trees had been cut down for the building to be erected.
She said logs had been cut and a maple tree had been pruned, but that these actions do not require forestry department permission.
Additionally, she said it would be “useful in the context of such developments” to ensure public access rivers on a case-by-case basis, as is done in the case of developments on coasts.
She also said that as the initial planning permission has expired, a new application must be submitted, taking into account the suggestions she has put forward.
The “illegal house” made headlines last month after videos of the property surfaced, with it having been alleged that the building was being constructed closer to the river than regulations allow, and on the basis of expired planning permission.
Papadopoulos told the Cyprus Mail at the time that he had obtained all necessary permits from the land registry and from the water development department, as well as a plot demarcation certificate.
He also denied altering the river’s flow, saying he had “only built a temporary small masonry wall on the bank of the small natural pond to prevent dirt from falling into the water due to the ongoing works,” and that this wall would be removed once construction has finished.
Additionally, he responded to a video circulating on social media of a dead fish floating in the pond, saying it had arrived in the pond as a result of a fish farm located upstream on the same river.
The Limassol district government said it would decree that work stop on the building examine whether conditions set by the water development department are being met, with Governor Yiannis Tsouloftas saying he had visited the site with the aim of “ascertaining the situation on the ground” .
