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For a three-year period, the calm of a local resident's cosy flat on the Kapuzinerberg has been interrupted by noise from an adjacent building site.

Wolfgang Porsche, a German-Austrian businessman, bought the historic mansion at number five as a second home in 2019 for about €9m. Ever since, he has been busily renovating the estate before he and his companion take up residence during the winter.

The eight-room villa, referred to locally as the Paschinger Schlössl, was home from the interwar period to the writer Stefan Zweig, who described it as “romantic and impractical”. Among its charms, he wrote, was that it was “not reachable by car” and could “only be accessed by ascending more than a hundred steps”.

“This peaceful setting has seemed remote in the last few years.”

The resident, a counsellor, says the construction activity has been so noisy that she has sometimes not been able to concentrate.

But trying as the past years have been, Rüggeberg fears it could be only the beginning. Porsche last month obtained approval from local officials for a plan to build an roughly ten million euro personal driveway from a municipal car park in the historic city centre through the rugged limestone hill. The 82-year-old’s plan is that the 500-metre road will lead to a underground parking garage next to the villa where he will be able to park eight cars.

Porsche has spoken of how he enjoys driving his cars on morning drives on the winding roads of the Austria's highest peak, about 120 miles to the south of Salzburg. His original idea had been for a private elevator to be built to take him up to his home. When that was rejected, he proposed the idea for the access route.

Even in Salzburg, which is used to the idiosyncrasies of the wealthy elite who gather in the city every year for the famous music festival, and which appreciates the financial contribution these wealthy guests make, this is viewed by many as a step too far.

“The owner has contributed significantly for the local economy,” the neighbor said. “But in this case, the municipality has not negotiated effectively. Everyone is equal but some are more equal than others.” At the very least, she said, she would have liked the city to have insisted the road be accessible to first responders, waste disposal and other residents.

The magnate received preliminary approval in the start of 2024 from Salzburg’s former mayor, a member of the conservative Austrian People’s party, to dig out “the Autohöhle” (car cave). Soon after, the local government was assumed by a leftwing contingent, a Social Democrat mayor and his Communist deputy amid worries the rich were making the city unaffordable of their own city.

The current mayor, the mayor, was employed by the company for over two decades and formerly served on the board of its parent company as a ex-worker representative. He has conceded “the appearance is not ideal”, but has said he has limited control over a project he “took over”.

“Nobody will have to notice the passage or even be aware it’s there,” the mayor told local press. “If the tunnel is appropriate for our era and ethically acceptable is for the public to judge.”

A local politician, the Green party leader on the municipal council, has led opposition to the project and maintained discussion in the public domain. “What has shocked residents is that a private person is being permitted to excavate the hillside for his own gain,” she said.

She has also been skeptical of the forty-eight thousand euro payment the owner paid the authorities for permission to cut through land that is publicly owned. An external consultant called in by the mayor after the payment was questioned concluded Porsche had paid too much by several thousand euros.

Salzburg’s city planning committee, which gave the green light in early September, said the project was in the common good because as long as the vehicles were in the underground passage they would not be producing emissions, occupying space or causing accidents.

This, say critics, is ridiculous. “These are highly entertaining justifications, on top of many others we’ve heard, like the fact the parking spaces already at the house are apparently insufficient,” the communist deputy mayor said.

The deputy mayor suggested the situation had “undermined people’s trust in the rule of law”, and strengthened the belief there was “a separate standard for the wealthy, another for the poor”.

The planned route has also led to some imaginative demonstrations. A group of environmentalists, identifying as the Porsche Tunnel festival, has hung banners from the hill reading: “And Porsche said, let there be a hole.”

Regardless of the opposition, the undertaking, having received the consent of the regulatory board, is highly likely to go ahead. A vote by the state is considered a formality and work is expected to start shortly.

In addition to any ecological or moral issues associated with a tycoon's project to tunnel through a mountain, there is an additional dimension that makes it particularly problematic for some. The villa was the writer's residence for a quarter of his life, before the Jewish writer fled in 1934, concerned about the effect the growth of extremism in the country would have on his safety after a politically motivated search on his home.

It was at this location that Zweig, a humanist and pacifist whose writings influenced the 2014 Wes Anderson film The Grand Budapest Hotel, entertained literati such as a Nobel laureate, James Joyce and the composer Richard Strauss. (Prior to his tenure, Mozart's sibling, Maria Anna, also taught music here.)

It jars with some in the area and elsewhere that the municipality did not acquire the property from its former occupants and preserve it as a tribute to Zweig. In front of the house, memorial plaques – or commemorative blocks – honor Zweig, his spouse, Friderike Zweig-Winternitz, and her two daughters, all of whom lived there.

Conversely, the property was bought by the businessman, who, as noted, is “the son of an SS man … the grandson of a prominent automotive designer”. The founder, who founded the business, created the Volkswagen Beetle for the German dictator.

A spokesperson for the Porsche family said: “As it is a private matter, we decline to comment.”