Bravo Nicusor Dan

Yey! Bravo Nicusor Dan! This from France 24 published 14th April, and even a week later, it's great to read:

Victory for activists fighting to save historic Bucharest

A January 2011 view of old buildings that were to be demolished on Buzesti street in Bucharest to make place for a large boulevard. A Romanian court has declared illegal a document used as the basis for the demolition of historic buildings in Bucharest, a court said on Thursday.

AFP - A Romanian court has declared illegal a document used as the basis for the demolition of historic buildings in Bucharest, a court said on Thursday.

The court on Tuesday said that the document issued by local authorities in 2006 delimiting the public area to be altered by the construction of a four-lane boulevard was invalid. The municipality said it would file an appeal against this decision.

A number of groups have called on the municipality to stop the construction works. But 75 buildings have already been demolished and 1,000 people evicted for the project.

"All documents subsequently issued by the municipality are based on the one that was declared illegal. This means that all demolition, eviction, delisting and construction operations are illegal", Nicusor Dan, chairman of the Save Bucharest Association, told reporters.

Bucharest's mayor Sorin Oprescu has argued that the road will relieve traffic congestion and that the historic buildings were in a bad state.

For many residents the project recalled the bulldozing of entire districts by the late dictator Nicolae Ceausescu to build a huge palace in the 1980s.

The Union of Architects in Romania and NGOs have called on several EU commissioners for help, saying the project "was continuing the urbanistic moves of Ceausescu's dictatorial regime" and was "brutally violating the principles of an integrated city development."

Comments

[sairj]

It's a shame we cannot clone him for if we had another 29 of him, we may well be on the road to success. Nicusor Dan is one of a kind and deserves accolades galore.

[valentin]

He is a fighter and I admire him and join his work anytime.Yes, weel said, bravo Nicusor Dan!