Buildings in Baarle predate the border. The international border
there was drawn around parcels based on loyalty preferences expressed
by owners, but only in the 1850s or so. Some of the buildings there
are far older. Why would they draw an international border through a
building? The building might have sat on two parcels owned by two
people with different loyalties. A single farm can be made of parcels
owned by many people or firms, and the farmhouse could be plunked down
on the farm at any convenient place.
In Baarle, also, two buildings one each side of the border could have
been enlargened by adding rooms or walls between them making a single
duplex building. One street there has a row of townhouses in a single
building, that it in one country more than once. Remember, too, there
were disputes over plots and where the border ran. For a long time,
long stretches of the previously unmarked border were mistakenly
though to be where they really weren't. If you built a house which
you thought was in only one country and the town gave you a permit,
and later found the border, when demarcated, wasn't where everyone
though it was, you have a house that's all of a sudden in two
countries!
I have a history of the Canada-US joint parcels, and remember from
reading it, that it is now expressly prohibited to build on the
border. I'l look for it and post it as soon as I can.
LN
--- In
BoundaryPoint@yahoogroups.com, Ernst Stavro Blofeld
<blofeld_es@y...> wrote:
> > My quesiton is why such situations happened at all.
> > What kind of rye-
> > drunk nomenklaturist carved out a land parcel or
> > issued a building
> > permit to build ONE property that is on both sides
> > of the border?
>
> This is a question that constantly teases me, too.
> That is, how can buildings straddle international
> borders? How do such situations come into existence?
>
> I can think of some explanations myself:
>
> - Lower level bordes get upgraded to international
> borders through some process. There is of course no
> real need to inhibit building across, say, a county
> border.
>
> - The international border is of minor importance, or,
> indeed, not really known. The straddling buildings of
> Baarle is an example of this, I suppose.
>
> - The purpose of the building has something to do with
> border formalities or traffic.
>
> But this does not explain the several examples of
> straddling buildings on, for example, CAUS. I suppose
> erecting a building in either country involves at
> least some measure of redtape routines. I know a
> country or two where the mere idea of applying for
> such a permit is close to unthinkable.
>
> Does anyone have information of the origins of a
> straddling building?
>
> M
>
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