A balcony on the second floor of an apartment building in the Limassol suburb of Yermasoyia collapsed and fell on to the first-floor balcony below it on Tuesday.
The balcony collapsed shortly after midday, with Amathus mayor Kyriakos Xydias saying the issue of old and potentially unsafe apartment buildings remaining in place is one which has been “plaguing us for years”.
He added that the building is one of four identical buildings which he said have been “troubling us for years”, and about which the former Yermasoyia municipality had been sending letters to its operator.
On this matter, he added, the building’s operator had previously been brought before the Yermasoyia municipal council.
“Today’s balcony collapse occurred due to renovation work and the vibrations which existed in the building during the owners’ attempt to essentially statically support the building and renovate it,” he said.
He added that he would now contact the Limassol district government with the aim of determining whether the company carrying out the renovation project had complied with health and safety laws, but did say it was “positive” that efforts were being made to fix the building.
“The only thing which remains is to check whether the contractor had secured the requisite permits and is complying with the building’s safety plan,” he said.
Speaking on the overall issue of building safety, he said his municipality has now made a record of all the dangerous buildings in the seafront area, but said it is “impossible” for the municipality to implement legislation to fix the buildings, house tenants in the meantime, and then invoice the owners.
“We want three or four budgets to carry this work out, but we will never get the money back, because in most cases, the owners themselves do not live in their apartments, but rent them out,” he explained.
Even so, he said, he is now aiming to make an amendment to the relevant legislation which will allow his municipality to declare a building unsafe and close it, then deal with the safety issues and forbid the owners from collecting rent from their tenants until the issues are fixed.
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