At the starting line is the first round of arbitrary demolitions, which were announced by the Minister of Environment and Energy, Mr. Thodoros Skylakakis.
The way was opened by a recent decision of the president of the Green Fund, Mr. Ioannis Androulakis, who approved the request of the “Rambos” of the environment, i.e. the special Corps of Inspectors and Auditors of the Ministry of the Interior, for the provision of a credit of 2,000,000 euros in order to start the demolitions in arbitrarily for the time period 2024-2025.
The issuance of a warrant for the arbitrary
The disbursement will be implemented by issuing a relevant warrant, after the Green Fund has checked the dossier of supporting documents which will include, among other things, the certificate of good execution of the projects.
The payment can also be made directly to the contractor – contractor who will undertake the execution of the demolitions in arbitrary, by assignment of the Ministry of Interior.
In case of impossibility of implementing the demolition decisions, due to the refusal of the private companies to execute the relevant contracts, by decision of the authority responsible for the demolition of an organ, they will be fined ranging from 6,000 euros to 10,000 euros, depending on the severity of the violation, on the basis of which the demolition is imposed.
It is noteworthy that often the demolitions “blocked” after the reluctance of local contractors, usually in small communities (eg on islands), to undertake the work. With the funding of two million euros from the Green Fund, the first phase of the demolition program is expected to begin immediately, with emergency contracts being awarded centrally by the Ministry of the Interior, in areas throughout the country.
New and old arbitrariness
Demolitions will be done suddenly in new and old arbitrarily, with priority to arbitrary ones erected from January 1, 2024 onwards. In fact, the areas where the demolitions will take place will be announced shortly before the work begins, while the volunteers will also be informed at the last minute.
Mr. Skylakakis had announced as early as last January, that the start of emergency contracts would begin in the fall, when he had presented the relevant arrangements for the new measures to deal with arbitrary construction, at that time to the cabinet, which were finally received in Law 5106 /2024 which was published in the Government Gazette on May 1.
The first arbitrary ones
The first rogues to see the bulldozer calipers will be the new rogues built from the beginning of the year onwards. If the owners decide to take legal action, then the cancellation application procedures will begin which are however limited to 4.5 months.
Next in the list of first demolitions will be illegal buildings that were “settled” under one of the laws on the legalization of arbitrary (4114/2011, 4178/2013 and 4495/2017) with false declarations, arbitrarily built on public lands, or illegal structures pre of July 2011 which were never legalized. After all, all buildings arbitrarily built after this date – it is the temporal “red line” in all laws for the legalization of buildings, which has also been accepted by the Council of State (Council of State) – are to be demolished anyway.
The list of definitive demolition protocols can be arbitrarily “skipped” that threaten serious environmental damage and be prioritized by the authorities. More generally, it is foreseen that every year a number of arbitrary buildings equal to the final demolition protocols of the reference year are planned to be demolished, half with time priority criteria and the rest with environmental and spatial criteria.
For the owners who accept the autopsy report and proceed to demolish the illegal building or to restore the legal use, the new regulations have provided for the deletion of 50% of the construction fine while administrative sanctions are not imposed or revoked, if they have already been imposed, and ceases and the administrative prosecution.
Pending the “Category 5” and the forest arbitrary
For four years now, the issue of settling large unauthorized buildings, the so-called “Category 5”, i.e. buildings with significant urban planning violations or even completely arbitrary ones, has been pending. In autumn 2020, no further extension was given to their legalization arrangements, and since then the problem remains as many of them belong to the public or the wider public sector (municipal buildings, schools, etc.) with the consequence that they cannot be subject to European renovation programs or energy upgrade.
In any case, the debate on the future of “Category 5”, as the political leadership of the Ministry of Internal Affairs has pointed out many times, will begin when the operation to demolish the arbitrary ones starts. As for the arbitrary forest settlements, Mr. Skylakakis had mentioned that the policy that has been implemented for the so-called “residential concentrations” has so far not brought results, for this reason new, more functional regulations will be drawn up that will determine their fate .
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