Engineers: Tear down unapproved buildings on Greek beaches

Civil engineers are calling for an end to the orgy of indecency with the arbitrary construction on beaches. In a letter sent by the branch of the Technical Chamber of Greece of Eastern Crete (TEE/TAK) to the Minister of Environment and Energy, Mr. Kostas Skrekas, they request the withdrawal of the regulation that was voted in early October in the Parliament and extended until March 31, 2023, the third extension respectively, in the suspension of the execution of demolition and administrative removal protocols for arbitrary constructions on coastlines and beaches.

The engineers of Crete request that the demolitions of the arbitrary buildings begin immediately. It is noteworthy that the first … brake on the bulldozers came with an amendment, which was signed by 12 government ministers, at the beginning of 2021 when demolitions had begun on two “fronts”, in Lasithi in Crete and in Nikiti in Halkidiki, by the respective services of the decentralized administrations.

Now, with the third extension, coverage is given for a few more months to those who had encroached and built before 9.3.2021 on a seashore, beach, shore, riparian zone, etc. without a decision granting their use. Essentially, it concerns demolition protocols – mainly for hotels, taverns and beach bars, nautical groups, fishing facilities – which in many cases may have taken up to fifteen years until they became irrevocably final.

No to “law is the law of the arbitrary”

Engineers react to “law is the law of the arbitrary”. As the TEE/TAK states “the construction of buildings on the coast, shore, water element, bottom and subsoil of the bottom of the sea, lagoon, lake and navigable river bed, is against the Constitution and therefore this category of arbitrary has never been included in the laws regularization and consequently cannot be legalized”. The special provisions on unauthorized constructions, as emphasized in the letter, aim at the immediate and effective protection of the coastal and marine area and impose the restoration of their shape, which has been altered by the unauthorized construction of any kind of technical work, building or construction.

That is why it is requested from the political leadership of the Ministry of Environment and Energy, that the arbitrary buildings that were erected without the administrative permit provided for by the coastal legislation be demolished at any time and if their erection has taken place, even if they were built before the demarcation of the beach by an administrative act, as “the beach is not created by a relevant act of the State, but results from natural phenomena, i.e. the largest but usual ascents of the waves, and the procedure for determining its limits, provided for in the law, aims only to ascertain this real event”.

The new postponement, as noted by the president of TEE/TAK, Mr. George Tavernarakis, comes in the wake of the biblical disaster left behind by the deadly downpour of October 17, in the Municipality of Malevizio, Sitia and Hersonissos, which highlighted the pathogenicity of the arbitrary encroachments.

“Additionally, two years of consecutive postponements have come and gone, during which very strong floods have been recorded, which have left their destructive mark in areas where encroachments and abuses have changed the natural topography of areas, as a result of which they become vulnerable and without any protection in terms of civil protection”, it is noted. For all these reasons, the engineers believe that the protocols for the demolition of arbitrary constructions within beaches must be implemented immediately by the Decentralized Administration, in accordance with the law, without giving a new extension, to protect the environmental balance and avoid disasters in cases of severe weather phenomena.

However, the justification for the new extension given by the government is interesting, which, in addition to the usual arguments about a pandemic, etc., invoked the following for those who have encroached on the coast and the beach: “The demolition and expulsion at the present time would cause serious and irreversible problems for a very large number of entities and persons (especially tourist businesses), who focus their activity on projects that have been built in the specific places (seashore, beach, etc.) without a relevant decision on concession of use ».