Municipality court orders to demolish a building in the neighbourhood of Bi’er Ayoub
The Jerusalem municipality court ordered to demolish part of a building owned by the family of Siam located in the neighbourhood of Bi’er Ayoub in Silwan Daoud Siam explained that the municipality decided that they should self-demolish two floors or else he would get arrested in addition to having their crews demolish the building and have the family pay the cost of demolishing. The municipality gave Daoud 45 days to appeal the court’s decision in the District court. He added that the building consists of 5 floors where each is 120 square meters (3 bedrooms, a living room and facilities). He pointed out that the first two floors were built before the occupation of Jerusalem and the other three floors were built in 1995. He added that the demolition order states that the third and fourth floors need to be demolished while the fifth is at risk of being demolished and there is a court session scheduled in mid December. Daoud explained that he submitted a request almost 20 years ago to the Jerusalem municipality to obtain a license for the third and fourth floors. After completing all the necessary paperwork and procedures to obtain the license, the municipality conditioned to have a parking garage in the building and since the family were unable to do so, the municipality cancelled and denied their request; note that the municipality imposed building violation fees three times on Siam family where the total amount was more than 380 thousand NIS in addition to ordering the owner of the building to do “public service” for 4 months.
