Debate post This is a debate entry, written by an external contributor. The post expresses the writer’s views.
The previous building plan for Mostranda camping has been legally revoked by Færder municipality due to the many building illegalities and serious technical deficiencies. At the same time, the municipality ordered the owners of Mostranda Camping to draw up a zoning plan that would take care of the necessary corrections to the land allocation and the new development.
This development is therefore not in accordance with any current zoning plan for the simple reason that no such plan exists.
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The owner of Mostranda Camping has not submitted a plan that Færder municipality can accept within the deadline and postponed deadlines, largely due to that they have not incorporated the changes in the existing buildings that Færder municipality requires. The owners have also not met other technical requirements that must be in place in order to run a campsite in accordance with regulations. The business has therefore been run on the basis of granted temporary dispensations, which Færder municipality is no longer willing to grant through a unanimous political decision. Patience is exhausted, to say the least, and that’s a good thing.
This leaves the owners of Mostranda without a valid operating licence.
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In this situation, where the owners give a blank for lack of permission to operate the campsite, Færder Næringsforening strongly goes public with support for the owners to defy Færder municipality and open the site for normal operation. Færder Næringsforening claims to all exaggeration that Færder municipality is wrong. As the matter stands now, there is probably no one other than the judiciary who can take a stand on such a hopeless claim.
Since the owners have opened the campsite for ordinary operations, this is nothing more than disrespectful civil disobedience, which should be prosecuted and not cheered on, as Færder Næringsforening led by leader Tor Lie and board member Nina Høyer is doing. One wonders if the rest of the board is of the same opinion. If that is the case, the association’s members should wake up and ask questions about whether the association is being run in a serious way.
ALSO READ: The trade association encourages the Mostranda owners to break the law
Should take the settlement
It is tempting to compare this with the extensive civil disobedience that lies in all the illegal building cases in the former Tjøme municipality. It seems there, as in the case of Mostranda Camping, that it is assumed that it is not so careful to follow the regulations and respect legally made decisions. How on earth can such attitudes prevail?
Here it is quite clear that there are more than the owners of Mostranda Camping who should come to grips with their own attitudes and behaviour.
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It is good then that a well-functioning democracy usually has the ability to put an end to such deviations, which we see from the judgment in the Tjøme case concerning corruption. Now a new indictment has also been issued for several breaches of the Planning and Building Act, i.a. incorrect planning and misleading information in construction matters.
READ ALSO: The Mostranda owners are not allowed to use the buildings on the campsite
Democracy works slowly, and it took a lot for the Tjøme case to go to court, but thanks to individuals like Tom Ravndal and an investigative press, it is unspeakably good that it is thoroughly cleaned up, so that no one will any longer be in doubt about what values and attitudes we who are lucky enough to live in a democratically governed country must have and live by.
