Robert Cicognini (62) has big plans for his body and dusts Cico in Gamsen VS. The two companies are bursting at the seams. That’s why Cicognini wants to create additional space by building a new hall. Everything has been going according to plan for a long time. Cicognini buys the necessary construction land and the community becomes cooperative. But when he submits the hall’s planning application, a great disappointment follows. The land will be developed. “This got me completely on the wrong track,” the entrepreneur tells Blick. His life’s job is threatened with expensive body damage.
The reason for the redevelopment decision is the new spatial planning law, which Swiss voters approved in 2013 but was rejected by 80 percent in Valais. This is clear: the people of Valais are most affected by the practice in Switzerland. Because the law stipulates that municipalities can only have construction land reserves for 15 years. Therefore, the municipalities in Valais should allocate 1,000 hectares of construction land to the agricultural zone and 1,000 hectares to the reserve zone.
Putting everything on one card
Gamsen is currently owned by the municipality of Brig-Glis, which owns 37.3 hectares of construction land in the agricultural or reserve zone. Cicognini alone loses about 6,000 square meters.
Cicognini says his tensions skyrocket if he resigns, talks about planned rezoning, or just thinks about it. In the background, a worker hits a car body with a hammer. Repairs hail damage. Another hangs painted metal sheets. The job is good.
32 years ago, Cicognini put everything on one card, borrowed a million Swiss francs and started his company. At first he worked 18 hours a day in his one-man job, repairing car hoods and doing clerical work. Eleven employees currently work at the two companies.
“About Existence”
His successor was already planned. With the construction of the new salon, Cicognini wanted to separate the body shop and paint shop and hand over a business area to his two sons.
In accordance with the construction permit issued by the municipality, the entrepreneur has already filled the site for the construction of the hall, planned to develop it and purchased several machines. With the depreciation of the building plot, it would have lost between 2.5 and 3 million francs.
It’s not very far though. Like many other landowners, Cicognini is taking legal action against the planned implementation of his municipality’s spatial planning law. “I wish the municipality of Brig-Glis would look again at difficult cases and seek solutions. You can’t plan something like that on the drawing board. It’s about livelihoods,” he says.
Too many construction sites have been zoned over the years
Valais has brought the current misery upon itself: Contrary to the regulations for years, municipalities have developed a lot of construction land and now have to re-devalue a large part of it.
Rezoning in Valais is always put into perspective by the fact that landowners become millionaires almost overnight without having to pay a franc value-added tax. However, Cicognini paid for the construction land out of his own pocket. Just like many owners who have been hit hard by the reconstruction hammer.
One of them is Odilo Zumthurm (77) of Brig-Glis. The current retiree has been an entrepreneur for decades, running the station kiosk in Brig before retiring and investing his savings on construction land. “As an investment and for my children,” he told Blick on the slum-affected meadow.
Is there still room?
Zumthurm invested more than 700,000 francs in several plots over two decades and took over additional construction land for 225,000 francs at the time. The value of its land has increased significantly in recent years, but now it may fall into the abyss. Most will be reserved or even converted to farmland. “The remaining small fraction can no longer be developed economically,” he says.
The municipality of Brig-Glis has been criticized for not using full coverage so that the required rezoning can be reduced. Zumthurm is taking legal action against rezoning.
Brig-Glis has experienced tremendous growth in recent years, thanks to Lonza in nearby Visp. If the community can show more population growth than in the original calculations, it needs to be divided into fewer districts. When the landowners formed an interest group and stubbornly opposed it, the municipality finally reacted and set up a commission. This is to reconsider the planned implementation of the Spatial Planning Act.
“Currently, there is an onboarding process where invoices are re-examined. But our population growth is even lower than the canton assumes in previous calculations, »says responsible city councilor Patrick Hildbrand (51). This limits the room for maneuver.
Has the dream of a single-family home exploded?
The Spatial Planning Law can lead to great injustices, especially regarding inheritance. So it happens again and again that people inherit construction land and their siblings, for example an apartment, and those who own the building land will probably not get anything because of the redevelopment.
The law hit a young family particularly hard at Naters VS. After a long search and purchasing the perfect building site for her dream home, the Swiss Landscape Conservation Foundation filed an appeal. In the foundation’s view, the municipality of Naters should first complete the reconstruction work and the land in question should be redeveloped anyway. The family wishes to remain anonymous. As she told Blick, she fears she might have to bury her dream house in Naters. Then they would have to bury their purchase price of a quarter of a million.
In the autumn of 2023 the residential area in Brig-Glis will be voted on, including the development plan and the planned redevelopment plan. Many of those directly affected are likely to appeal.