The Equinostrum equestrian center is "involved in a war that does not belong to it" and has already incurred expenses due to the dispute between a neighboring owner and the City Council, linked to the sale of land in the western part of Ribeirinho de Park Faro.
Equinostrum used the access road to the neighbor's land since its inauguration, with his agreement, but saw the path where its main entrance ended and the central water supply pipe destroyed, when Valter Alfaiate decided destroy that secondary access of the newly opened Faro leisure space.
A situation that is linked to a disagreement on the value of the business, between the Chamber of Faro and Valter Alfaiate, who has represented the three alleged owners of the land (at the moment, the space belongs to the Public Water Domain, guarantees ARH do Algarve). The municipality is only willing to pay 190 euros, when the potential owner wants the 450 that the Chamber of Faro and the Municipal Assembly admitted to paying, in 2011.
However, the municipality asked for an appraisal of the land, which says it is only worth 190 euros. In addition, the owners will still have to prove that the land is effectively theirs, since in light of the Water Resources Ownership Law, approved in 2005, they will have to demonstrate, with documents, that it was already private property in 1864.
The Equinostrum, which has already taken this test with the competent authorities, in relation to its land, ended up being caught in the middle of this dispute and they complain that it is "being used as a weapon against the Council", by the disgruntled neighbor .
“When we opened the center in 2007, we contacted Mr. Valter Alfaiate, who was the only one of the four heirs of the land that we knew. We asked if we could use the path and he told us to go through at will», he revealed to the Sul Informação Júlio Coutinho, founding partner of the Farense Equestrian Center.
Júlio Coutinho: “We already had an unrecorded expense of more than one thousand euros”
Until a few weeks ago, there was no problem, with employees and clients of the center using part of the path (later integrated in Ribeirinho de Park Faro) to access your main entrance.
Everything changed when Valter Alfaiate «with a tractor, I destroyed the road and cut the water». “At the time, we called the GNR, which took care of the incident. He apologized and said it was by accident. We tried to repair the conduct at our expense, but he wouldn't authorize it. Then came FAGAR and he forbade them to work on their land, if they wanted to make the connection on our side», he described.
In addition to having to pay for a new water installation, having been without this essential asset for five days, the Equinostrum was forced to open a new entrance to the main road.
All of this led the company to have "an unreported expense of more than a thousand euros", in addition to having called into question the activity and even the safety of the equestrian center, since it is an establishment "which has animals and wooden structures ».
“You didn't have the slightest decency towards us, we are in the middle of a fight that is not ours. He opened a ditch directly in front of our gate, which was authorized by nine different entities», illustrated Júlio Coutinho.
Nelly Henrique de Brito, partner of Júlio Coutinho at Equinostrum, had already publicly denounced the situation last week. In a note to the media, the company's founder also pointed out that the path in question «is the public domain of REFER, a public water path, has been in existence for over 100 years, has served the Eco Via do Algarve and has served the Equinostrum for 4 years without the owner made any complaint or comment».
“Why is Equinostrum being harmed? Simply because the owner understands that we must put pressure on the City Council to pay him what he wants», concluded Nelly de Brito.
As for the new entrance, despite allowing, for now, the center to continue to be accessible by car, the center's management fears that, with the arrival of the rainy season, it will become impassable.
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