The case of the hotel, which was built above the rest in the area of ​​Makrygiannis, opened up the “Aeolus bag” for the maximum height of buildings across the country. The decision of the Council of State, by which the building was declared arbitrary with respect to its upper floors, influences the decisions of the courts more widely. Building permits are revoked one by one using the same privileged legal mechanisms that were used for the hotel. Now urban planning and municipalities are curtailing, fearing to be “in the middle”.

At the same time, there is unrest in the construction market not only from those who are “trapped” in the new situation, but also from those who see their plans turned upside down. The environment ministry is being asked to make a final decision on a regulation that appears to be doing more harm than good. If he upholds the rule, he may bring those who use it to legal action. If he cancels it, he would draw the ire of the broader construction industry, which is now doing the “gold business” after a decade-destroying crisis for construction.

The case began in 2019 with the decision (No. 2102) of the Plenum of the Council of Ministers regarding the Kokomat Hotel on Falireos Street in Makrigianni. The building was constructed using some of the provisions of the new building codes, which gave bonuses of additional square meters and additional height if the building met certain bioclimatic design conditions. Thus, the building reached a height of 33 meters, while the maximum height of other buildings in the area was 21 + 3 meters.

The Council of Europe canceled the building permit for the additional height of the building, arguing that permission had not been obtained from the Ministry of Culture, which was necessary due to its proximity to the Acropolis. However, the decision makes clear reference to the 1955 decree (“Conditions for building in Athens”), which divides the city into sectors and defines specific building conditions in each of them. According to the Supreme Court, the decision is still in force and therefore should have been taken into account.

The fact is that before that, the construction department of the municipality of Athens for years “indirectly” refused this decree, issuing permits in accordance with the general, and then the new building codes (GOK and NOK).

A few months later, the courts began to receive the first complaints from citizens about the building permits issued in accordance with the NOK in various areas of Athens. In October, the Ministry of the Environment intervened at the request of the Department of Environment and Spatial Planning of Western Greece. The ministry was asked to answer whether, in an area where maximum storeys are set, a new building is allowed to exceed them using the preferential arrangements in question. Deputy Minister of Land Management Nikos Tagaras, in his decision, determined that these provisions could be applied everywhere, except for traditional settlements, traditional parts of the city, historical sites or areas of exclusive residential use. “Otherwise, the purpose of the environmental promotion of the article will be nullified,” he says.

The Municipality of Athens “unofficially” stopped issuing high altitude permits, pending instructions from the Ministry of the Environment.

But the courts had a different opinion. The Athens Administrative Court of Appeal issued two decisions (nos. 2026 and 2028/2022) annulling two building permits in Ampelokipi. In substantiating the decision, the court referred to the decision of the Supreme Court. A few days later, the decision of the Municipal Council of Filotei-Psychiko followed, by which it is trying to prohibit the issuance of permits with controversial rules (which give additional height) throughout its territory. This was followed by the construction service of the municipality of Athens, which unofficially stopped issuing permits with the same rules, pending instructions from the Ministry of the Environment.

These events, as well as subsequent ones, caused disruptions in the construction market. First, there are those who were directly affected: for example, Mr. George Papadopoulos, who bought a piece of land in Neo Psychiko and started building an apartment building. “We are absolutely legal. We have provided part of the site to the municipality with a notary deed in order to take advantage of the preferential position of the Norwegian krone. We have concluded preliminary agreements with buyers, received advances and now we cannot build,” he tells K. “Now we are at an impasse, with a smaller lot than the original, a maintenance loan, and contracts with material suppliers, we got a building permit under state law, and all of a sudden we’re in financial ruin.”

However, the broader market is “stupidly” watching developments. “For us, as investors, a stable structure is important. When someone moves the goal, we can’t score,” says Erricos Arones, CEO of Hellenic Properties. “When you buy a property, you follow a certain way of evaluating an investment, obviously based on how many square meters you can realize. It’s quite another thing to know that you have three floors with a view of the Acropolis that you can use, and another one. However, for me the discussion is moving in the wrong direction. In my opinion, Athens does not need taller buildings precisely because it is very densely built up. We have to see how we will use the “useless” old industrial buildings that exist all over Attica. Stimulate these buildings a thousand times, despite the extra floors.

The technical bodies are moving in the same direction. “It is absurd to take a court decision and essentially cancel thousands of issued permits and implicitly say that all the buildings built with their help are unauthorized,” said George Stasinos, president of the Hellenic Chamber of Technology. “If we want to be a serious and privileged country, it is necessary to adopt a horizontal position, which says that the building regulations prevail, with any exceptions that the Ministry of Internal Affairs deems necessary. And those municipalities that want to apply the old decrees – more than 30 years old – must prepare the necessary studies and promote new presidential decrees with the desired restrictions. Restrictions that existed decades ago are now probably anti-environmental and do not serve modern needs.”

On the other hand, a significant part of society considers the decisions of the courts to be correct. “The decision of the Council of Europe, taken after the struggle of the Hellenic Society for the Environment and Culture (ELLET), is a good occasion to start a wider discussion on the intensity and quality of construction in Athens with the aim of a general revision of the building regulations, reducing the height of the building and the coefficient, the immediate repeal of Article 10 NOK (c.c. height bonus) and land-use revision towards the softest,” assesses Irini Frezada, urban architect and member of the Board of Directors of ELLET. “The ongoing intensification of construction is incompatible both with the existing geometry of the city (from the width of streets to the height of buildings) and with the capacity of the existing road network to serve traffic. The result is a rapid deterioration in the quality of life, a sharp decrease in sunlight and ventilation, especially on the lower floors of buildings, traffic congestion, excessive pollution, and strain on public utilities.

All eyes are on the Ministry of the Environment, which is currently reluctant to open its doors. “We are working on this issue to see how we can resolve it quickly and with legal certainty,” says Deputy Planning Minister Nikos Tagaras. “We are reviewing the rationale for court decisions to understand how we should intervene. I hope we can say more in a few days.”

The area was forced to build a house that was demolished

Last week, the Council of Europe asked the municipality of Athens to comply immediately after two years of inactivity and demolish additional floors of the Cocomat Hotel. But can he oblige him? The case of the building in Pelion is typical.
The business developed in the village of Afissos in Magnesia. In 1999, the owner of the old two-story house applied for permission to demolish the house and build a new one. Initially, the EPAE (architectural committee) rejected the application, but then approved it, and thus the owner issued a demolition permit and a building permit. Citizens appealed this decision to the Supreme Court, but in the meantime the building was demolished. The Supreme Court (no. 842/2002) annulled the demolition permit and the building permit because it had not been verified whether the building was a worthy example of the area and its demolition would change the characteristics of a traditional settlement. Urban planning came back and after a new decision, EPAE re-approved the demolition already carried out, on the basis that the building was already badly worn before it was demolished, and issued a new building permit. This was followed by a new decision of the Supreme Court (977/2005), which again annulled two permits, reiterating that the architectural value of the house in relation to the traditional settlement was not examined.

The owner of the building then made (as it turned out) a clever move: in a series of appeals to the administration, she asked to comply with the last decision of the Armed Forces and either allow construction or order the restoration of things in their place. the former state, i.e. that her house be rebuilt … by the Magnesian City Planning Department (which was held responsible because of the decisions it made). Her application to the urban planning department was not accepted, after which she applied to the Supreme Court with a court decision in her favor (no. 3178/2009). As it was decided, due to the fact that the building was demolished with permission, “the costs of its reconstruction are borne by the administration, since in this case the demolition is not the result of arbitrariness or violation of the obligations of the owner.”

However, the region of Thessaly (in which urban planning was included) did not respond. At the request of the interested party, the CoE Compliance Board began to impose successive fines on the county. Thus, having previously paid a fine of 50,000 euros to the victim, the region decided to hold a tender and actually reconstructed the house, and the case was finally closed in 2018.
However, it looks like the municipality of Athens won’t have to go that far as the decision was made within a week to send an urban planning team to the hotel to draw up a random report…