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Plans by a billionaire heir of luxury sports car maker Porsche to build a private tunnel and underground garage beneath his mansion on one of Salzburg's most iconic hills have sparked outrage in the Austrian city.

Emotions have run high since local media revealed that Wolfgang Porsche struck a deal with Salzburg's former conservative mayor, Harald Preuner, in 2024 to drill an underground private tunnel below his villa on the Kapuzinerberg.

Under the deal, the billionaire paid 40,000 euros ($43,300) to gain the rights to dig a tunnel -- with a garage designed to hold up to a dozen cars -- on city-owned land.

A steep and narrow road that can turn icy when temperatures drop currently leads up to Porsche's mansion.

Some politicians have expressed outrage since news of the deal broke, complaining that the city council had not been briefed about the heir's plans.

Local Green leader Ingeborg Haller has led the protest, criticising what she called the "back-door deal" and the "very intransparent" way the project has been handled.

"Salzburg is UNESCO-listed. We are also in a nature reserve here and this is simply a highly sensitive area," Haller told AFP.

She said any kind of "special treatment for the super-rich" was unacceptable.

In response to criticism, a court-certified expert was appointed by the incumbent Social Democratic mayor, Bernhard Auinger.

'Better to inform the public'  

Porsche bought the historic villa -- the Paschinger Schloessl, located near a Capuchin monastery on the forested hill -- in 2020.

The mansion, which is currently under renovation, once belonged to Austria's famed Jewish writer Stefan Zweig.

Zweig lived there for 15 years and penned several well-known works there before fleeing to Britain during the rise of Nazism.

Wolfgang Porsche is the grandson of Austrian-born Ferdinand Porsche, who founded the car company.

The 81-year-old acts as the chairman of Porsche's supervisory board.

Porsche sealed the 40,000-euro-deal with ex-mayor Preuner in early 2024, just before the newly elected Auinger took office.

Even though Preuner was not obliged to brief councillors, "it would have been more appropriate to inform the public about the project in advance", Christian Hacker, head of the mayoral office, told AFP on Friday.

"Whether the tunnel is in tune with the times and morally defensible is for others to judge," Hacker said.

The city council is expected to decide in mid-May whether or not to let the project go ahead, since it would have to approve a zoning plan change for the planned garage.

"It is not yet clear whether there is a majority in favour of the approval of the underground car park," Hacker said.

Contacted by AFP, a spokesman for Wolfgang Porsche declined to comment on what he called a "private matter" with no connection to the Porsche company, a subsidiary of the German car giant Volkswagen.