Cyprus Mail 6 December 2024 - by Iole Damaskinos
Parts of a balcony collapsed in Limassol overnight damaging parked vehicles below, with the mayor on Friday re-issuing calls for legal action from authorities.
Similar incidents had happened in the city in December last year and in January this year.
The mayor went to the scene in the Neapolis area around 10pm on Thursday night where the chunks of weathered concrete had broken off and hit the cars below, fortunately with no injuries.
A municipality crew had been dispatched to clean up and the building was to be inspected on Friday morning.
Flat owners had already been served with a warning from the municipality in 2019 and 2021 informing them that the building was in need of maintenance, Limassol Mayor Yiannis Armeftis told the CyBC.
“The required repairs were assessed at a cost of around €10,000 per flat owner for the 40 flats in the building,” he said, but some owners had complained they could not afford to pay so the matter was dropped. It was later reported that the building is owned by an overseas landlord.
Local authorities must be provided with ramped up legal powers to deal with dangerous buildings, Armeftis said, and the matter was a pressing one.
In Limassol alone 140 dangerous buildings are on the record, for which state funding to the tune of €500,000 to €1m had been discussed, once the district administration (EOA) takes over from the municipality the task of managing the problem.
However, the EOA take-over had been postponed twice and is now set for April 2025, leaving the municipality’s hands tied, Armeftis explained. The latter is currently limited to putting up warning signs, making announcements with lists of dangerous properties, and issuing fines.
The mayor underscored that the existing legislation hampers local authorities from intervening and urged for the executive and legislative powers to “create mechanisms to ensure safe buildings.”
Problems with crumbling buildings constructed with sub-par materials in the 70s and 80s will only become more numerous and acute if drastic measures are not taken, Armeftis said.
He reiterated calls for regular inspections, similar to vehicle MOTs.
There are far too many buildings for the municipality to afford to repair and, at any rate, responsibility must be born by owners, particularly those renting out properties at extremely favourable rates, the mayor said.
In addition to hazards caused by aging and negligence, owners also carry out illegal constructions, such as enclosing basements, which may cut off emergency exits or create other risks, he added.
Resorting to the courts and securing evictions from dangerous buildings is time consuming, Armeftis said, citing an example of a case which took three years.
“The municipality spent €1.5m on that building’s repair and is still trying to collect this money,” he said.
