Business owners want compensation if moved
The Association of Kifissos Region Factories and Industries is calling for an amendment to the presidential decree on the river in order to protect their businesses as well as the environment, according to an announcement sent to Kathimerini. The association’s members claim their businesses were established in the area long before the presidential decree, in accordance with other decrees in 1980, 1981 and 1984 that had forced them to move there from other areas that had been classified as residential. They say that members have legal permits to set up and operate their businesses, that they regularly pay high municipal fees, taxes and VAT and that they fulfill environmental requirements; they claim most of the firms are low-impact and cause minimal pollution. «The state is once again changing land use classifications, causing desperation among factory owners faced with closure. The presidential decree says that factories that are 50 meters either side of the river’s axis (no one knows what this is exactly since it has never been established in practice) cannot modernize for 13 years, or expand; they are being held hostage because once again they will have to move. But where? Neither the presidential decree nor any other legislative act establishes sites where they can move to, or compensation payments. What is to happen with our property? How can the state restore the area without first compensating us? What about the thousands of workers in factories that the state is forcing the closure of without giving business owners any way out? Who will pay these workers’ compensation?» The association claims it is just as interested in protecting the environment as «ecologists» are. «If the state really does have an organized restoration plan for the area, it can go about it in the legal way provided for in the constitution by expropriating the property and compensating its citizens so they do not feel as if they are living in a dictatorial or colonial regime,» they wrote. «Then we will all be in favor of the restoration of the Kifissos.»
