Civic group sues Bucharest City Hall over retrocession of 12-hectare area in IOR Park

The IOR-Titan Civic Initiative Group Association (AsociațiaGrupul de Inițiativă Civică IOR-Titan) announced that it sued the Bucharest City Hall, intending to cancel the retrocession of 12 hectares of land in IOR Park, one of the capital’s largest green areas, which the association says was done illegally. Thus, they request the court to declare “the absolute nullity” of the City Hall’s provisions by which the area was retroceded “because the land was in public property and not in the private property of the City Hall.”

“The legal action represents a new stage in the fight of residents of the Titan neighborhood and its surroundings for the recovery of this extensive area of the IOR Park, which in the last two years has been seriously affected by the illegal cutting of trees and numerous vegetation fires,” reads the civic group’s statement.

“Thousands of residents of the area protested repeatedly and in various forms against the destruction, demanding the reversal of an unjust decision that deprives the city of an important place for recreation and a vital source of clean air, biodiversity, coolness, health.”

The IOR-Titan Civic Initiative Group Association was established as a non-governmental, non-profit association to represent the local community in court and to further monitor and report the destruction of green spaces and urban nature to the authorities.

According to the organization, civic actions to recover this area of IOR Park began in 2013, when, at the initiative of a group of locals, thousands of residents signed a petition asking the authorities to identify legal and moral methods by which the restituted area could be reintroduced into the park. Over the years, citizens have attended public meetings of the local council, demanding concrete actions, staged protests, and banded together in various local civic initiatives to stop the actions in IOR.

The IOR-Titan civic group was born in February 2023, after the new owners fenced off the area. The association mobilized over 1,500 residents of the neighborhood to save the park.

With the help of Greenpeace Romania, the group also initiated an online petition signed by over 21,000 citizens, which can still be backed by signature here. The Bucharest Community Foundation, the Environmental Platform for Bucharest, CeRe (Resource Center for Public Participation), EcoCivica, and Agent Green also joined the efforts to recover the 12-hectare plot of land in the IOR Park.

(Photo source:AsociațiaGrupul de Inițiativă Civică IOR-Titan)