Porsche heir faces backlash over £8.5m private tunnel to Austrian villa
Salzburg council is set to rule on 81-year-old Wolfgang Porsche's right to dig a tunnel, reminiscent of a James Bond villain's lair, to reach his 17th-century villa and its vast garage.
The small city's former mayor approved the project in 2024, but its current Left-leaning mayor has opposed the move.
It has led to a dispute between politicians and the public, who say that Mr Porsche was granted swift permission for his €10 million (£8.5 million) project while city renovation projects have had to wait years.
In one recent act of protest to coincide with Easter, activists hosted a three-day theatre festival titled 'The Tunnel of Mr P – a grotesque piece in three acts'.
The group said:'We cannot afford the overly wealthy like Porsche anymore. No luxury for the few at the cost of others.'
The upset in the baroque city, where Mozart was born and the Sound of Music was filmed, follows Mr Porsche's purchase of the villa for $9 million in 2020.
The home formerly belonged to the celebrated Jewish author Stefan Zweig, who used it to entertain his eminent contemporaries, including James Joyce and Thomas Mann.
Zweig loved his 'charming and impractical' home, as he called it, so much that he wanted it to be 'inaccessible by car'.
Mr Porsche, who is the chairman of the car company, appears not to share this sentiment. Last year, he paid the conservative-led council at the time €35,000 for planning permission.
Opponents of the project have said that the sum he paid was too low, while others have claimed it appears to give privileged access to the wealthy.
One banner left behind by activists on the Kapuzinerberg mountain had a reference to the opening passages of the bible: 'And Porsche said, let there be a hole.'
Ingeborg Haller, the leader of the Green Party group on the local council and an opponent of the plans, told The Wall Street Journal: 'I think what amazes people is that a private individual can dig into the mountain.'
'We reject special treatment for the super-rich,' she said.
The Social Democrats will make up the deciding vote on a council, which is divided on the issue after the Austrian communist party won a record result in last year's elections.
To make the politics more complicated, the mayor used to be on the labour board of Porsche holding company and may abstain from voting to avoid a possible conflict of interest.
To keep the peace, Porsche has suggested partially opening his villa to the public, as well as allowing wealthy neighbours in the villa-quarter to use his tunnel.
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