New bid to smarten up Pireos St
Yet another government bid to prettify one of the capital’s least glamorous thoroughfares through new zoning rules, building restrictions and extensive plantings was announced yesterday. A decision by Environment, Physical Planning and Public Works Minister Giorgos Souflias revises the town plan on a long stretch of Pireos Street – an avenue lined with several old industrial buildings and modern eyesores that links the city center with the port of Piraeus. A plan to improve Pireos launched with much ado by the previous, Socialist government failed to produce tangible results. Now, the ministry has imposed building restrictions along the road in a bid to prevent the erection of large edifices such as hypermarkets, while at the same time providing incentives for the conservation of listed buildings and forcing property owners to plant trees and bushes on their land. Furthermore, the ministry will try to secure plots of land for public use, with the aim of creating «linear parks» on either side of the busy road.
