No amnesty for illegal homes
Illegally built homes likely will not get an amnesty this year, and the unchecked development that is crippling Greece’s metropolitan areas could be limited by the government’s long-awaited National Zoning Plan, sources told Kathimerini yesterday. Amnesties for illegal buildings, which account for a quarter of houses in Greece, have been a popular pre-election tool in the past. However, Public Works and Environment Ministry officials insist that the government will not renew the most recent initiative, which ended on March 1. The amnesty was launched by the PASOK government in 2003 and allowed the owners of houses that had been built without town-planning approval to apply for their houses to be connected to public utilities and not be subject to any further fines. Up to 50,000 homes, mostly in Attica, have been declared since 2003 and this has put a strain on town-planning officials who have to process these applications. Sources said that the government prefers to deal with the issue through the introduction of its National Zoning Plan. The plan, which has yet to be finalized, could lead to the addition of large sections of land that has already been developed to the town-planning scheme. The plan also will make it legal to build on other tracts that have been particularly coveted. The rise in illegal construction in Greece began in the 1950s, when homes in Athens were built quickly to accommodate workers from rural areas. Experts have identified two more waves of illegal construction: one in the 1970s, when many families began building summer houses, and the other over the last two decades, which has seen developers bend building regulations to construct homes that are larger than the law permits. Previous governments have at times tried to deter people from building homes illegally through various methods, such as tearing down the unlawful constructions, but the initiatives have failed. «Whatever methods have been used have not been accompanied by strong mechanisms to check they are being implemented so the illegal construction has continued unabated,» architect and town planner Rania Kloutsinioti told Kathimerini. «As long as the state does not knock down these buildings, it is sending out the wrong message,» Kloutsinioti added. «In Italy, there was widespread demolition of illegal buildings and they stopped illegal construction. The measures there had the support of local government but here the mayors support the lawbreakers.» According to a study by the Foundation for Economic and Industrial Research (IOBE), one in three homes built between 1991 and 2001 was constructed illegally. It is estimated that there are more than 1.5 million illegal homes in Greece.
