A new look at how to build center of Athens derived from State Council. As the Supreme Administrative Court ruled, all Building Permits and inside it trade triangle they should be controlled by the CAS both in height and in the creation of new hotels. Thus, the CoE for the first time indicates the need to stop the touristization of the center. At the same time, this returns a question about the maximum height compared to NOK (new building regulations) from a different point of view, since the building affected by the decision was given a “premium” over an illegal floor, which is a sign of urban planning “mess” caused by arbitrary legalizations and the unconditional granting of a building regulation premium.

Yesterday the decision (No. 2460/22) of the 5th section was published. The Supreme Court acquitted a citizen who challenged two decisions of the Construction Service of the Municipality of Athens and one decision of the Department of Prehistoric and Classical Antiquities of the Ministry of Antiquities. The applicant is the owner of an apartment in an apartment building on Ayolow Street who sought legal assistance when his adjacent office building was converted into a hotel and a makeshift roof structure into a rooftop garden. Thus, the city dweller not only lost the view that his house had on the Acropolis, but also found himself with a promising hotel bar at the height of his house.

Story

The history of the case is of great interest as a case. The building, built in 1955, was built as a five-story administrative building. The building was a “monument” to urban lawlessness. Inside, offices on all floors have been (without permission) removed to create unified business spaces. The balconies on the 4th and 5th floors were closed. An elevator was built to replace the lamp post. The end of the stairs on the roof was widened and turned into the 6th floor, while a new roof was built. Thus, the building reached a height of 24.5 meters compared to 15 meters, which is today the maximum allowable in the commercial triangle.

In 2018, the owners of the building legalized all urban planning lawlessness (through Law 4495/17). Then, in April 2020, the Building Authority of the Municipality of Athens issued a building permit to change the purpose of the building from offices to residential buildings (15 apartments). In the summer of that year, work began on the dismantling of various old metal structures on the roof, and thus the applicant realized that something was going on. He contacted the city planning department, which conducted an autopsy, finding two violations (in relation to the 2020 building permit): the addition of a slab of the 5th and 6th floors and the installation of a roof slab.

The Supreme Court also concerns the amount of the bonus in Norwegian kroner, as it was issued on the “ordinary” floor.

The city planning department ordered work to stop, and the owners filed for a revision of the permit. As amended, in September 2021, the office building will be converted not into a residence, but into a hotel. In addition, the NOK bonus was used to convert the roof into a rooftop garden. Therefore, the citizen appealed to the Supreme Court.

The process is changing

The Section 5 decision is of particular importance as it changes the process for issuing building permits in the mall. More specific:

• The Council of Europe requires that every building permit in the commercial triangle has a positive opinion from the CAS (and a corresponding decision from the Minister of Culture), as it did two years ago for the Makrygiannis area. As stated in the decision, in accordance with the archaeological law, “in the existing settlements that are archaeological monuments, interference or use is prohibited, which can directly or indirectly lead to the destruction, damage or change in the character and urban structure.” Thus, the Ministry of Culture had to evaluate the license “without being tied to building conditions and uses defined by general or special provisions” (hotels are allowed in the area), expressly pointing out the need to control not only construction activities, but “also the activities of commercial business such as the tourism business near ancient monuments or World Cultural Heritage archaeological sites such as the Acropolis.” Finally, he notes that the service of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which issued the opinion, “did not carry out an assessment of the tourist use around the Acropolis.”

• In addition, the CE indirectly but clearly points out the problem of using the NOK bonus. The decision refers to “an arbitrarily created and subsequently adjusted maximum building height that already far exceeds the current maximum building height in the area.” Thus, in fact, the CE points to the urban “mess”, since the bonus was already given for an illegal high-rise building, since … this is not prohibited.

“The decision represents an intersection of recent Supreme Court jurisprudence,” said Andreas Papatropoulos, the applicant’s lawyer (who also handled the Coco-Mat hotel case in Makrygiannis). “For the first time, a clear reference is made to the threat that uncontrolled tourist activity poses to the very physiognomy of the Athenian commercial triangle. The CAS is also responsible for determining and clarifying the conditions for construction activities in areas located outside the declared archaeological site, but adjacent to it. In my opinion, the intervention of the municipality, the Ministry of the Interior, as well as civil society itself, is now required to protect the housing and land use that still keep this precious piece of Athenian land alive.”