IN A half empty room, the House Environmental Committee held a meeting with three deputies and other officials to discuss the problem of sporadic development plans threatening national heritage and the environment in areas of cultural importance.
The Town Planning Department was asked to come up with a plan to monitor and co-ordinate development.
Six out of the nine deputies on the Committee were absent from yesterday’s meeting, two months ahead of the Parliamentary elections.
So the discussion was conducted mainly among the non-deputies.
Only AKEL’s Kyriacos Tyrimos and Katy Clerides of DISY were present at the start of the meeting, while Christos Rotsas of DISY showed up half an hour into the discussion.
The Committee convened to respond to concerns over construction works in Fikardou village in the Nicosia district.
Fikardou, set on a hillside, has been declared an ancient monument to preserve the remarkable woodwork and folk architecture of the 16th and 18th century buildings. Two houses have received awards from Europa Nostra in 1984. The village has 10 inhabitants.
Christina Pandazi from the Agriculture and Environment ministry’s Environmental Service warned that construction plans were threatening the village’s unique character and unspoiled environment.
“The farmers are preparing land to grow olive trees about a mile from the village’s inhabited area. What worries me is the sporadic development in the village that is not in line with the government’s town planning policy. The government has decided that any development plans in such areas must be part of general town planning schemes and not the results of individuals’ initiatives,” Pandazi said.
However, Yiannakis Charalambous, the assistant to Nicosia’s district officer, played down concerns about the two farmers’ plans, saying that they did not affect the village’s character and environment. He added that the Town Planning Department was now in control of the situation.
Clerides, acting chairwoman of the Committee, felt the moves were “not so terrible”.
But Pandazi also complained about the demolition of several traditional houses to make way for a four-metre-wide road linking Fikardou to Klirou.
Pefkios Georgiades, Secretary-general of the Pancyprian Organisation of Architectural Heritage, raised the alarm, saying that most areas of the island’s countryside suffered from sporadic development.
“You must understand that Cyprus’ only heritage are its stones, its buildings, its environment. We have nothing else apart from that so we must protect it. But we keep constructing roads and buildings in the wrong places, with no government plan to supervise and co-ordinate development. It’s happened in many places like Fikardou and the area around Choirokitia in the Limassol district. This way, we are destroying the environment and the traditional character of our villages,” he warned.
Georgiades and Pandazi called on the Committee to strengthen the existing law providing that development in areas of cultural or environmental importance should fall in line with general town-planning schemes.
The Town Planning Department’s Theodoros Hadjigeorgiou reassured the Committee that his department was already looking into the matter.
Clerides asked Hadjigeorgiou to take in account the issues raised at the meeting.
But Christos Rotsas of DISY looked at the matter from residents’ point of view.
“Residents of Fikardou and other areas who want to build houses for their children cannot do it in their village because the law does not allow it,” he complained.
Clerides said the matter was worth looking at but pointed out that the Interior Committee was the one that should address it.
Asked about the small number of deputies at the meeting and whether it had anything to do with the fact that deputies’ main concern now was the elections on May 27, Clerides replied: “We intend to continue working until the end of our term on April 19.”
The Cyprus Mail is the only English-language daily newspaper published in Cyprus. It was established in 1945 and today, with its popular and widely-read website, the Cyprus Mail is among the most trusted news sites in Cyprus. The newspaper is not affiliated with any political parties and has always striven to maintain its independence. Over the past 70-plus years, the Cyprus Mail, with a small dedicated team, has covered momentous events in Cyprus’ modern history, chronicling the last gasps of British colonial rule, Cyprus’ truncated independence, the coup and Turkish invasion, and the decades of negotiations to stitch the divided island back together, plus a myriad of scandals, murders, and human interests stories that capture the island and its -people. Observers describe it as politically conservative.
