With a legal opinion on monument protection in Wels last week, the initiative for monument protection made people sit up and take notice: According to this, the city would not sufficiently exploit its possibilities to permanently protect the historical building fabric. Chairman Albert Neugebauer had criticized the fact that city politicians always only protested that they had no legal recourse against the destruction of old buildings in Wels. In view of the new report, he called for city politicians to confess that the city’s historic buildings were worthy of protection.
Building councilor Ralph Schäfer (FP) now raises objections to this – with his own legal opinion from legal experts from the magistrate. “We do not share the opinion of the report, unfortunately we do not have the legal options to protect historic buildings.”
Bad experiences
Accordingly, the legal passages cited in the report by the Initiative for Monument Protection are not suitable for preventing the demolition or extensive conversion of historic buildings. “Unfortunately, experience has shown us that too – the city of Wels has in part already attempted to raise objections on the basis of the laws cited in the report. Unfortunately, we always got turned down in court”says Shepherd.
Theoretically, as described in the report, there is actually the possibility of, for example, in the city center “replanning area” to build. In this there would then be the possibility that the city would issue more restrictive planning specifications. However, this intervention in property rights makes the city potentially liable for claims for damages. “This could significantly reduce the value of the property in this area. In addition, it is not clear whether a new planning area would legally hold up at all”says Shepherd.
use in the country
According to Schäfer, in order to improve the protection of historic buildings, the federal government needs to change the law. A petition to this effect, which the city council had submitted to the state parliament last year on Schäfer’s initiative, was not accepted by the state parliament.
He will continue to try to rethink at state level, says Schäfer: “I am in talks about this, also with colleagues from the state party.” In his opinion, a law similar to that for Graz, with which the Styrian state government has given the city extensive opportunities to protect historic buildings, would be ideal.
Source: Nachrichten
