The islanders of the FaroThe Ilha da Culatra Hangars will once again go to court to try to stop a new wave of demolitions, already made official by the Polis Ria Formosa Society, announced today, Wednesday, the associations of Residents of Hangares and Ilha do Farol of Santa Maria.
The owners of 22 houses in these two centers received notifications for the administrative takeover of their houses, taking place on February 28o, but the associations that represent them do not accept a decision they call “unfair” and will even open a joint account, to help those affected to pay court costs.
Taking into account that each injunction “costs 3600 euros”, the bill can amount to close to 80 thousand euros, for the 22 houses. And all the help counts, as highlighted by José Lezinho, president of the association of Moradores dos Hangares. “Paying a thousand or 1500 euros is better than paying 3600. The idea is to get as much support as possible. We will ask our members to contribute what they can, 10 or 20 euros. We will also advertise on social media, to get the message across. Today for them, tomorrow for others», he said.
The same will be done by the association that represents homeowners in the Farol, chaired by Feliciano Júlio, bearing in mind that this is a joint strategy, which came out of a meeting between the directors of the two associations. The representatives of the owners of houses listed for demolition also agreed to promote a public debate on the resumption of the renaturalization process, by the Polis Society, scheduled for Saturday, February 3rd, at 10:30 am, in the pavilion of the Clube Desportivo “Os Olhanenses”.
The message to be transmitted will be the same that was conveyed today to the owners of houses who received letters from Polis, in a session that took place at the Casa da Juventude in Olhão.
At the meeting, the leaders of the two associations stated that they were "outraged by the Government's inertia" in solving a problem that, they say, they thought no longer existed. They even guarantee that they were "caught unprepared" for the letters that arrived in mid-January, therefore, said Feliciano Júlio, of the houses in question, “many were recognized by the Court as being first homes and others belong to shellfish gatherers and fishermen.
“There are also situations where houses go down by half a meter or because the wall is less than 40 meters from the waterline. It's ridiculous," considered the president of the Ilha do Farol of Santa Maria.
The 22 houses in question – 12 in the Farol, ten in Hangars – were spared in the first wave of demolitions due to the precautionary measures with which their owners advanced. But in the meantime, the court was rejecting the actions. At the moment, there are only two processes still in progress, relating to as many houses.
Despite having already tried it once, nothing prevents the owners of the houses from going back to court, as long as the argument is different from the first measure. And this is the intention of the two associations, which, despite having a strategy in mind, prefer to keep it a secret.
Despite having their sleeves rolled up to fight in court - "all the houses were supposed to go down, but they are still there, you have to fight", recalled José Lezinho -, the representatives of the owners of the houses to be demolished are willing to dialogue with the government. But, they guarantee, there has been no return on this intention. "We have already sent emails to the minister of the Environment and other entities and we have not received any response", they assure.
Even so, the islanders hope that those responsible for the Environment portfolio will show their willingness to dialogue and not insist on moving forward with the renaturalization "based on the Coastal Border Management Plan (POOC), which is obsolete and should already be revised" .
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