2024-04-10 00:48:30
The mayor of North Tzoumerko, Nikos Vaitsis, sent a letter to the president of the PED of Epirus regarding the issue that has arisen with the obligations that arise in the municipalities due to the non-functioning of the electronic base for the annual recording of the obligations of plot owners during the fire season.
Following the discussion at the last meeting of the Board of Directors. of the PED of Epirus, where concerns and concerns were expressed by all the members, states that the PED of Epirus should not stop at the expression of protest, but proceed to submit a specific proposal.
A proposal, which will be feasible and implementable, in contrast to the interpretative circular for the implementation of the “Regulation on Fire Protection of Properties in and near Forest Lands”, which calls on the owners to have done the fire protection report on their property by the end of the month, to have cleaned their properties and plots and submitted the relevant documents to the municipalities, since the relevant application on gov.gr is not yet ready.
“Given that even today we don’t know who the “specialist” is, to whom the citizens should turn, but above all in many municipalities there is an objective impossibility of forming three-member committees, consisting of a forester or agronomist, an engineer and another employee of the Department of Civil Protection, to carry out sample checks of supporting documents, it is as clear as day that the measure is unenforceable”, emphasizes Mr. Vaitsis and continues by saying: “It is clear that an attempt is being made to shift the responsibilities from the state to the municipalities, a fact that it is politically reprehensible and we must decry it in all tones. But, because the problem touches us and we have learned not to retreat from political responsibilities, the concern should be to find ways that will lead the owners to comply with the obligation to clean up their plots”.
The proposal, which he submits, consists in increasing the imposed fine to 2.50-3 euros per square meter, which will force the owners to proceed with the cleaning of their plot, as clearly the fine will be greater than the cost cleaning. However, even if they do not do so, each Municipality will be able to create a “piggy bank” to proceed with assignments to clean up the dangerous plots, something that practically does not exist today as a possibility with fines of the order of 0.50 euros /sq.m.
As he mentions in the letter to the president of PED Epirus Panagiotis Dais, he had the opportunity to discuss this proposal in the past with the former Minister of Climate Crisis and Civil Protection Christos Stylianidis, who agreed that it could be an effective solution.
“In this direction I believe that we must move, and indeed immediately, in order not to find ourselves at a dead end”, concludes N. Vaitsis.