City-planning officials “throw the ball.” Ministry of the Environment, relative to the maximum height of buildings. With a new solution, he insists that the use of the height and floor bonus given New building codes (NOK) can also be applied in Athens, directly bypassing a number of recent decisions of the Council of Europe. Therefore, civil servants are asked to take the responsibility of following the ministry or the supreme court to annul, taking into account the possible consequences of a new judicial annulment of the building permit.

Solution posted yesterday on Clarity, is signed by Deputy Environment Minister Nikos Tagaras. This is the second “clarification” of the ministry on the same issue, as many urban planning authorities (including the municipality of Athens) stopped issuing altitude permits against NOK, fearing the consequences of new legal problems.

The most interesting point of the decision concerns the decrees of 1934 and 1955 (for Athens). According to the decision of the Ministry of the Interior, “they were not protective decrees, since their provisions were not imposed for the protection of Athens from an archaeological and historical point of view (sic) or from the point of view of the protection of the landscape. nor is there any mention in the preamble to them of any study of the characteristics of the territories to which they concern, or of the provisions of the archaeological legislation.” However, the ministry acknowledges that the 1955 decree was not repealed, but its provisions were “made useless”.

The use of the height and number of floors bonus provided by the New Building Regulations can also be applied in Athens.

Cancellation

This position arose after two decisions of the Court of Appeal of Athens (see “K” 11/16/22), which canceled building permits in Ampelokipi. The decisions of the Court of Appeal, in turn, are based on three decisions of the Supreme Court (2102/19 and 705, 706/20), by which the Supreme Court on annulment determined that if there are special orders with a certain height and number of floors, they should apply, and not the provisions of the GOK of 1985 and the NOK of 2012, which depend on the height of buildings from (already high in Athens) building factors. In addition, the SC has clearly indicated that the municipality of Athens is subject to the 1955 decree, which it considers to be valid.

Even more interesting is the assessment of the ministerial decision that the aforementioned annulment decision of the Supreme Court is due to insufficient information. “The lack of information, clarification and provision to the Court on behalf of the administration of all the necessary elements, parameters and, as the case may be, more specific technical arguments in relation to the administrative act in question, combined with the evolution of the institutional framework, has led to decisions that undermine the institutional framework applied urban planning services over a number of years in relation to the height of buildings, ”the decision says.

Finally, the ministry recalls that only presidential decrees that have been issued to protect a site or monument take precedence over the NOC, with the exception of those “cancelled directly or indirectly.” The decision of the ministry is “confusing” in urban planning (especially in the case of Athens), where the official is asked to decide whether to apply the court’s decision or the interpretation of the Ministry of the Environment.