And thus began the fight for my backyard
For about a year ago we bought, what I would call, my dream house. It was not big, but it is located in a very cute area, with the best neighbours I could ask for, and best of all; the big grand forest is just on my door step. Out of my kitchen window I got the untouched beauty of the forest and wild-life. Out in the forest I got my quiet sanctuary
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These situations are very sad, but of course, very common. You can just look at development maps of any area and find situations where many people must have felt exactly like you do.
I would be careful before I choose to fight this. Not because I feel it is wrong to fight it, but because it can be a big financial drain on you. You can expect that the builders deal with people like you all the time. They have strong knowledge about how far they can stretch, and lawyers to fight for them. Any cost of delays / impracticalities are likely to be put on you.
Check the regulation plans. Were these areas already regulated for housing? In that case, your case is not very strong. If there was a change of regulations, and the area was not involved, you may have a better case. However, I would only hope for compensation (decrease in property value), not a halt in the project. You may also find that many in the area does not share your opinion. People who do not have this forrest directly connected to their house, but is in a situation that you are about to end up in, may see this as something that will increase the value of their property, as the area becomes more central and potentially more popular. They may look at increased public transport to the area, more funding to activities in the area, etc. These people may turn to be hostile, and you risk loosing your back yard and having people around you dislike you.
Living near Gardermoen, you may imagine how much fights there has been in this area. First off because of the rather large expansion of the airport, secondly due to the extreme increase in building activities in this district. For some, getting a noisy airport and forest being converted to housing has been very undesireable, for others, they have enjoyed an absurd increase in the value of their property. Jessheim is an example of this. Many have lost great view and now look into an apartment building instead, or have had a quiet back yard being turned into a noisy street. Others have seen a value increase withy 100% more than what happend in other areas.
I, for instance, get near no support for wanting to remove the skate board ramp they put up 100 meters from our house. I get support from the people who are directly affected by it. Everyone else, however, seem to be very happy the ramp is there, and feel us greedy for not wanting to give the kids this place to play. Never minding that we are often kept up till 2am by the noise, and the fact that it can decrease the property value. This fight, however, is a small one compared to the one you are about to start. There is little financial loss in my fight, we just risk pissing some people off. But even this fight is draining.
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It is regulated for housing now, yeah, however, it was no public plans for housing regulations here year ago when we moved here. We were, however, made aware of that it was an application for regulation changes in the area here, but that regulation change was for 60 new houses, and would be located further down.
What this regulation change they now show us says is completely different from what was known a year ago (and none of us in borettslaget had any indication that this would change), because the area has been extended all the way up to markagrensa, and physically connected with our properties, and has regulation for 150 new houses! It came as a shock for all of us, as the letter of notification came to to our borettslagleader on friday, and that was even after the first poles appeared in the forest.
I have heard lots about the fights around Gardermoen, when it first came to be, and with the expansion. I can imagine that has brought a lot of conflicts, and have heard about many of those which reached the news papers. Also, I did not know you had issues where you live now. It seem like a rather calm area, I have barely seen any life around there when we came for visits. :\ It is a shame there has to be disagreements like that...
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To give you an answer, no, your request are not unreasonable. But these are house builders we talk about. They have a reputation of being irresponsible. Not long ago it was in the newspaper about this guy who got his view blocked by a big apartment building, but was granted no compensation by Selvaag. This guy had a tree in his garden long before the apartment building was built. Now, Selvaag is demanding that he removes the tree, or pays a huge compensation, as the tree is blocking view from apartments.
But I hope you manage to get some changes done so it will not be so dang close to your house. I noticed just HOW tight things were built in your area. Given just HOW MUCH SPACE is there, I do not understand why this is desirable. I see it so many places. You can see the older places with nice space between houses, and new, where houses are so tight together. If they plan to build 150 new houses, it should be some "air" between them, or else the area is going to feel just too cramped!
Good luck!
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And yeah, it is very cramped here with houses. We need the forest here to give us space. Also the people who live inside the loop of Kalkbrennerveien agree that they need the forest there, and in the very least the forest path to remain intact. And to be honest, I think that any people who would buy property in the new housing area would also prefer some air between the houses. I can not see anyone would enjoy having their property crammed up against ours, when we only got 4 metres from our wall to property border.
Thank you, mean while I will try to keep hope up. :)
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