When the Spatial Planning Act (RPG) was implemented, millions of national assets in Valais disappeared in an instant. Law hits a young family especially hard at Naters VS. After a long search, finding and purchasing the perfect construction site for her dream home, the Swiss Landscape Conservation Foundation (SL) and Pro Natura appealed. According to Manager Raimund Rodewald (63), the municipality of Naters must first complete the rezoning and the plot in question should in any case be zoned into valuable water/grassland. The rezoning requirement in Naters is huge at 68 hectares.
The family wants to remain anonymous, everyone in the area knows each other. It has been two and a half years since I submitted the zoning application. And still not sure if it will be possible to build on the ground. According to the municipality, construction land must remain under certain conditions. But nothing is finalized yet. RPG implementation in the community is ongoing and needs to be voted on by the population. If the land is rezoned, the family will have to bury the purchase price, that is, a quarter of a million.
“David vs. Goliath”
Central National Councilor Philipp Matthias Bregy, 44, is uncomfortable with a national foundation standing in the way of a family’s dream: “This lawsuit is one of the reasons I want to restrict the association’s right to complain about small projects.”
Bregy has now submitted a proposal to the National Council to be made into a bill by the commission in charge. In the future, associations will no longer be able to object to small individual projects within the construction site. “This is an abuse of the association’s right of appeal. A strong association with its coffers should not be able to take action against a young family. It’s an unequal duel,” Bregy says, calling his advance “David against Goliath.”
Raimund Rodewald opposes the accusation of abuse of the right to complain. “We’re only talking about projects that include a habitat worthy of preservation and a large construction site, as at Naters,” explains Rodewald. “In the Naters case, the canton and the municipality also rejected the construction application on legal grounds.”
Three more cases in Schaffhausen
Rodewald believes the lawsuit at Naters could have been avoided: “If the municipality had upgraded the planning districts in time, then it would have been clear where it was safe to build or not.”
SL filed three more lawsuits together with other environmental organizations in the city of Schaffhausen. There, he objected to the construction of two single-family homes and one two-family house to protect dry meadows of national importance.
“But these are strictly isolated cases,” emphasizes Rodewald. This has happened only a few times in the Foundation’s 53-year history. However, the low number of cases does not give confidence to the leader of the middle group, Philipp Matthias Bregy. “With a large association as a competitor, most give up after deal negotiations,” he says. The young family has not yet given up their plots.