After several months of e-mails and telephone conversations between the city council, the homeowners, the developer and the Planning and Building Agency, 58 homeowners are finally allowed to move into the apartments that have been ready since March.
At the beginning of June, Nettavisen wrote about 58 families who were denied occupancy in their brand new apartments due to an order requirement.
The apartments were completely ready and the only thing missing was the families who were going to live there.
Maria Sjuve and Mattias Lundmark had sold their old house and bought an apartment in the new building.
The problem was that the developer, Grefsen Utvikling, for various reasons had not met the order requirements for the last housing step in the large development of Grefsen station town.
The Planning and Building Authority had demanded that a footbridge on the other side of the neighborhood be built before the families could move in.
The couple was therefore informed that they were not allowed to move in at the planned time anyway. When they could move in depended on when the footbridge was built. This was uncertain, but estimated at the earliest in the autumn of 2022.
Over a year after the planned move-in should have taken place.
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After countless phone calls and email correspondences between the various parties, the couple can finally put a stressful spring behind them.
Last Friday, the Planning and Building Authority gave all homeowners a temporary use permit.
Could not stand more swearing answers
Maria Sjuve says that they really had little faith that the situation would be resolved.
– When I received that e-mail, we were in the car on the way to Canvas Hove on a mini vacation. When I opened the e-mail and saw that I had received an e-mail, I thought that I could not really read it right now. I could not stand more swearing answers, says Sjuve.
But then she finally opened the email.
– When I started reading it, I did not understand anything. I started laughing and had to read it twice.
She says that there were several happy homeowners that night. A couple of their future neighbors have already started moving in.
The couple was on holiday without the children when they received the message. When they returned home, they could finally tell their six-year-old daughter to move into the apartment.
The last time Nettavisen spoke to Sjuve and Lundmark, they were worried about what to tell their daughter who had been looking forward to starting school in the local area.
– She has come to class with everyone from kindergarten and now we notice that everything falls into place. Our daughter is very happy. This uncertainty with school and kindergarten for our kids has been the worst, says Sjuve.
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– It is clear that the pressure they have felt now works
While waiting to find out if they can move in or not, the couple has rented a temporary home.
– We were in contact with the bank because we had to find out what alternatives we had if the situation did not work out. We could not stay in the temporary apartment forever, it simply does not work. In addition, all our things are still in stock and we pay for storage space, she says.
The couple will spend the last holiday week at the end of July moving in.
– We’m excited. We have not been in there for a long time. We have almost no idea what it looks like. We have forgotten everything and tried to forget it because we did not know if we will be allowed to move in, says Sjuve.
She believes the pressure the city council has received from several quarters is the reason why homeowners can finally start packing their things in the moving car.
– We are pretty sure that both the press releases and that we buyers have pressured the city council with e-mails and phone calls are part of the reason why this problem has been solved. It is clear that the pressure they have felt now works, she says.
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Did not want buyers to suffer
City Councilor Hannah E. Marcussen (MDG) in urban development is the politician who sent the letter that got the process started on Friday night.
– From what I experience, a number of home buyers are now in danger of becoming homeless as they have sold their respective homes in confidence in the developer’s statement about the expected takeover, Marcussen writes to the Planning and Building Agency.
She did not want buyers to suffer from this.
– Here there are, among other things, families with children where the children will start school in the local community. It must be important that they are allowed to keep school places and kindergarten places, and that they are allowed to move in as they are envisioned by the developer, she says, and adds:
– It seems very unreasonable that the children and families are inflicted such great and unfortunate consequences that the developer does not carry out the construction of the regulated footbridge they have been required to carry out since 2008.
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Granted temporary dispensation
The City Council department has had two meetings on the matter on 25 June and 1 July. There, they have been assured that the bridge will continue to be built as provided for in the zoning plan.
– Grefsen Development delivered the schedule with the expected completion of the footbridge in the fourth quarter of 2022. Grefsen Development has also provided a bank guarantee for the construction of the footbridge. On the basis of this and the binding schedule, the city council has now granted a temporary dispensation, so that the residents can move in, Marcussen says to Nettavisen.
She explains that this has taken time because the developer has not met the requirements in the zoning plans.
– Here, the buyers in Grefsen station town have suffered damage. In order to solve the unsustainable situation for the new residents, the municipality has recently demanded that Grefsen develop a detailed schedule of the application and construction process for the footbridge, so that they commit to construction within an agreed period.
– On the basis of this new schedule and a bank guarantee, I have now ensured that they are granted a temporary dispensation from the order requirements, so that the residents can move into their homes and not be more harmed than necessary, she says.
Marcussen asked that the case be given priority and a couple of hours later the family was told that they could move in.
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Grefsen Utvikling told Nettavisen in June that the company has since the first application six years ago intended to have the footbridge built as quickly as possible.
During all these years, however, different demands have been made by various agencies and stakeholders that have made it very difficult to find a solution. PBE has granted a number of exemptions for the order requirement previously, but has so far not wanted to grant it for house 25, said general manager, Per Gunnar Rymer, in June.
The development company was very surprised that it will take so long to get a coordinated permit from the municipality to build a relatively simple footbridge. Grefsen Utvikling has had to deal with both the Planning and Building Agency, the Urban Environment Agency, Sporveien, Veivesenet, and Bane NOR Eiendom.
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