{"id":21612,"date":"2015-04-18T09:00:46","date_gmt":"2015-04-18T12:00:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rioonwatch.org\/?p=21612"},"modified":"2016-04-11T02:18:25","modified_gmt":"2016-04-11T05:18:25","slug":"the-last-resident-of-avenida-autodromo-a-conversation-with-tadilmarco-peixopo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/?p=21612","title":{"rendered":"The Last Resident of Avenida Aut\u00f3dromo: A conversation with Tadilmarco Peixopo"},"content":{"rendered":"

Clique aqui para Portugu\u00eas\"\"<\/em><\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Sitting in the rubble of his neighbor\u2019s demolished house on Sunday, April 5, Tadilmarco Peixopo, the last resident of Avenida Aut\u00f3dromo, described his surroundings of debris and vacant lots as a war scene: \u201cIt is as if you were living here and a bomb fell on the house next door and killed everyone, leaving you all alone. It is like the end of the world and everyone died.\u201d Just eleven\u00a0days later, on April 16, Tadilmarco received\u00a0word from a lawyer that the City was going to demolish\u00a0his house, and the house of one other resident, “immediately.”<\/p>\n

21 years ago Tadilmarco moved to \u201cthe best place to live in Brazil. It was called Avenida Aut\u00f3dromo.\u201d Originally a community of fishermen settled in the 1960s, Vila Aut\u00f3dromo<\/a>, in Rio\u2019s West Zone<\/a>, grew to 3,000 residents<\/a>. That number now stands at around 50 families. For 20 years Vila Aut\u00f3dromo faced threats of eviction and fought hard to receive 99 year leases from the State government; however, the 2009 decision<\/a>\u00a0that Rio de Janeiro would play\u00a0host to the 2016 Olympic Games further\u00a0jeopardized this small community due to its location next to the planned\u00a0Olympic Park.<\/p>\n

Tireless community resistance won some residents deals at or near\u00a0market-rate compensation<\/a>\u2014the first in favela history, although the market-rate value has been disputed<\/a>\u2014in exchange for leaving their homes. But the already tense situation escalated on March 19 of this year when Mayor Eduardo Paes used eminent domain\u00a0to announce the eviction and demolition of the remaining 58 houses for public use<\/a>, leaving those who have resisted most vehemently based on the Mayor’s promise of allowing those who wanted to stay to remain and receive infrastructure improvements<\/a>, hopeless. This recent move that Tadilmarco described as a \u201ccowardly act\u201d appears to have sealed the fate\u00a0of\u00a0Vila Aut\u00f3dromo: \u201cI do not believe people will manage to carry on living here.\u00a0[Paes] has no interest in leaving anyone living here. So Vila Aut\u00f3dromo is over unfortunately. It is a reality that I, who live here, have to accept bitterly in my heart. It is very difficult to admit.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Tadilmarco<\/a><\/p>\n

Most disappointing is that the policy of declaring eminent domain to justify taking private property for public use is at odds with previous promises made by the Mayor and the Olympic Committee.<\/p>\n

For years the community has received contradictory promises from the government. In 1994 they were granted 99-year land titles<\/a>\u00a0from the State,\u00a0in 2009 the\u00a0original plans for the Olympic Park left\u00a0Vila Aut\u00f3dromo intact<\/a>, and in 2013\u00a0the Mayor promised that no residents would be forced to leave<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Tadilmarco recalled: \u201cThe mayor declared, not just in one meeting but in various with the community and the president of the Residents’ Association, that whoever wanted to stay could stay and that he would improve the infrastructure. Moreover, that if someone\u00a0were to have to leave their home, they could be relocated within the community.”<\/p>\n

\u201cThat was just a lie…<\/span>Like a good politician, used to lying, he is trained to lie, so he came in with this eminent domain.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Vila<\/a><\/p>\n

Even\u00a0before this announcement\u00a0of\u00a0\u201cexpropriation via decree<\/a>,\u201d Tadilmarco had doubts as to whether supposed market-rate compensation was the fair and respectful policy it was reported to be. \u201cIf my house is not for sale then it doesn\u2019t have a price. It can\u2019t be valued by the market. If I don\u2019t want to sell something of mine, then it doesn\u2019t have a price.\u201d<\/p>\n

The city has made offers for Tadilmarco\u2019s house, but they have yet to make one that he considers just. \u201cI have not accepted and will not accept if it is not a fair price. I will stay until the last consequences. I hope it reaches a fair price for me and my family.\u201d<\/p>\n

He believes a fair market value is one with which he can \u201ctake that money and buy another property in Barra da Tijuca<\/a>, as they are now calling this area, on the lakefront, with this much space, with the security and tranquility of this area.\u201d This, he claims, he cannot do with the price he was being offered.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was not a good price\u2014it was a bad price. The City didn\u2019t pay well; it simply shut people up.\u201d<\/p>\n

He explains\u00a0that most families have accepted the City\u2019s offers as much out of fear as for the money.<\/p>\n

\"Destruction<\/a><\/p>\n

Tadilmarco feels especially strongly about the subject because, he said, it is not the first time he has had something taken away by the City, and specifically by Eduardo Paes who, from his time as Deputy Mayor for Barra da Tijuca, has a long history with the community.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe mayor, Eduardo Paes, took my job away four times. He took the first job I had, a company, all properly documented. He arrived there with the municipal guards and two trucks and knocked down my business. I was left with a family in need; I even went hungry because I could not get a job. Later, I put together another business and then Eduardo Paes went there and took it away for the second time. So I took to driving competitively on the racetrack. Then Eduardo Paes and\u00a0Cesar Maia closed the racetrack\u00a0and left me without work again.”<\/p>\n

\u201cI got a taxi and earned a living as a driver spending 18 hours a day driving around. I got kidnapped in Rocinha<\/a> by 16 gangsters. I didn\u2019t see my son grow up because I would leave the house at six in the morning and come back at four the next morning. I had to work long hours to pay the rent because the car was very old. I got back into racing and for the fourth time he took my job. Now he wants to take my house.\u201d<\/p>\n

Since hearing from a lawyer on Thursday that his house could be seized imminently, Tadilmarco said\u00a0he is urgently seeking somewhere to move his family. He reported that the damage to his neighbor’s house had damaged his house too, and that he now feels unsafe in his own home.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Clique aqui para Portugu\u00eas Sitting in the rubble of his neighbor\u2019s demolished house on Sunday, April 5, Tadilmarco Peixopo, the last resident of Avenida Aut\u00f3dromo, described his surroundings of debris and vacant lots as a […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":68,"featured_media":21614,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1293,1736,1288,1284,336,1329],"tags":[9,225,272,179,11,65,282,26,262,1259,5,10,270,4,21],"writer":[1564],"translator":[],"illustrator":[],"photographer":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-21612","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-evictionswatch","8":"category-1736","9":"category-highlight","10":"category-interviews-profiles","11":"category-violations","12":"category-by-international-observers","13":"tag-9","14":"tag-barra-da-tijuca","15":"tag-mayor-eduardo-paes","16":"tag-evictee-profile","17":"tag-forced-evictions","18":"tag-gentrification","19":"tag-housing","20":"tag-housing-rights","21":"tag-interview","22":"tag-mega-events","23":"tag-olympics","24":"tag-real-estate-speculation","25":"tag-resistance","26":"tag-vila-autodromo","27":"tag-west-zone","28":"writer-brooke-parkin"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21612","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/68"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=21612"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21612\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/21614"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=21612"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=21612"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=21612"},{"taxonomy":"writer","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fwriter&post=21612"},{"taxonomy":"translator","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftranslator&post=21612"},{"taxonomy":"illustrator","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fillustrator&post=21612"},{"taxonomy":"photographer","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fphotographer&post=21612"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}