It was March 28, and the wind gusts in Thessaloniki reached eight on the Beaufort scale. The young man was walking down the street when he heard a deafening noise behind him. The roof of the abandoned house collapsed seconds after he walked past it. A six-year-old girl from Xanthi was out of luck. A few days ago, he was crushed by the collapse of the mandir wall and died instantly. His death once again exposed a great thorn in the side of the Greek state: abandoned and dangerously dilapidated buildings that exist throughout the territory and pose a danger to the lives of citizens.

The scale of the problem was expressed in numbers when, in December 2020, the Ministry of the Environment announced that about 9,500 buildings were on the list of collapsing or in danger of collapsing in the country, not even counting all the municipalities. The recording was made after another accident, the tragic death of two teenagers as a result of the collapse of the wall on Samos after the earthquake that occurred in the same year. At that time, measures were even announced to speed up the procedures, which today, three years later, have not been fully implemented, leaving the problematic situation forever.

Process and obstacles

Municipalities play a central role in the management of abandoned buildings. In most cases, the municipality receives information about an abandoned building based on a citizen’s complaint. If the building does not fall under the special category, the civil engineer of the appropriate municipal service performs the first autopsy and draws up a report, which is sent to a committee of three, which decides whether the building is dangerously unstable or not. If it is found unusable, the owner is notified that the building will be repaired or demolished. If he does not respond within a certain period of time, the case is referred to the prosecutor’s office, and if even then the owner does not comply, the municipality undertakes to demolish the building, and then the costs are borne by the owner through the tax office. The process can stumble over both bureaucratic and practical issues. “How should we demolish buildings? We have neither the means nor the experience. In Trikala, one building adjoins another. We have to find a contract to take it on without the money to back it up,” he says. President of the Central Union of Municipalities of Greece and Mayor of Trikkai Dimitris Papastergiou.

Rapid Demolition Committees

However, this is not the most difficult case that can arise. Difficulties begin when the buildings are under the jurisdiction of the Ministries of Ecology and Culture. In order to speed up the bureaucratic procedures for these hundreds of buildings, in 2021, by legislation of the Ministry of the Environment in each decentralized administration, seven-member special dangerous preparedness committees were created to inspect buildings older than the last hundred. years, buildings located next to a monument or within or near an archaeological site or a historical site or a site of particular natural beauty.

Committees have not been established in all regions and do not work at the required speed.

According to an informed source, two years later, these committees have not been created in all regions, and if they are, they do not function at the required speed. The same source claims that even if the members of the Commission act quickly, the demolition could still be delayed due to obstacles or weaknesses in the municipalities. Monuments and monuments, which in a number of cities make up the largest percentage of those in need, are excluded from the scope of these committees.

They invariably end in a riot

“Our main difficulty is that too many old buildings are abandoned and are being mothballed,” he tells K. George Apostolopoulos, Deputy Mayor for Municipal Property and Construction of the Municipality of Athens, where about 1600 abandoned buildings are scattered. As he describes, the Ministry of Culture has very demanding, time-consuming and costly procedures for someone to restore their building, and in many cases it is not financially viable for the owners, who are often numerous, to continue. A multiple ownership regime with many heirs, some of whom may not live in Greece, as well as the financial inability of the owners to maintain the building, leads to the abandonment and gradual deterioration of the surviving houses. “If the owners see that it is not in their interest to build a building, or if they still cannot agree with each other because of joint ownership, then these houses will eventually become unusable,” the vice mayor notes, adding that the municipality can do is to take some protective measures so that citizens are not at risk, such as installing sheet metal.

“A large percentage of finished products are worth keeping,” she says. Maria Doussi, Associate Professor of Architecture at AUTH. “Even the Ministry of Culture is unable to cope with the huge potential of these monuments. All he can do is protect them, and therefore the monument, which is the property of all of us, is left to its fate, and the world around it is also to its fate. This is a dead end,” he says.

At the same time, the legislative decree of the Ministry of the Environment remained on paper, which would appoint the central municipalities or private individuals appointed by them to repair and dispose of abandoned up to 50 years old.

“Don’t demonize buildings”

However, the withering and destruction of buildings is not only a matter of security, but also a matter of protecting the history and architectural heritage of the country.

HOUR Irini Grazia, archaeologist and MONUMENTA coordinator, a public non-profit organization for the protection of natural and architectural heritage, is sounding the alarm in connection with the loss of not only architectural monuments, but also buildings that, although not included in the list, are an integral part of our recent history and identity, as they were. built in the interwar period and reflect the society of that era. “These are small-town and mid-town houses, buildings of the interwar period, the 20s and 30s,” she notes, saying that in every district something needs to be preserved from these buildings, which are now massively “leaving” .

However, Mrs. Grazia argues that in order to restore and maintain both these buildings and those that have survived, it is necessary to financially stimulate the owners. For example, the Keep scheme that will have this role has not yet moved forward to empower landlords. “Let’s not demonize buildings. It’s not the building’s fault. We leave them abandoned. Somehow we have to deal with this issue.”