2024-06-07 03:25:32
Complaints by house owners to the OT – The Ombudsman says the measures are unconstitutional
Thousands and thousands of property house owners throughout the nation are caught in a double bind, who’re confronted with huge difficulties in making an attempt to adjust to the brand new Fireplace Safety Rules for his or her property positioned in or close to forested areas and with the duty to scrub up city plots of land.
The advanced procedures, the tight deadlines however above all the massive prices that the house owners must bear – instantly but in addition over a interval of 1 or two years relying on the diploma of riskiness of the properties – have created an enormous disturbance, which additionally brought about a “catapult” intervention » of the Citizen’s Advocate Mr. Andreas Pottakis, who additionally raises the query of the constitutionality of the Joint Ministerial Choice on the Fireplace Safety Regulation.
The brand new measures for hearth safety lit fires amongst constructing house owners
“Black cash” dominates
As for the price to the citizen, as residents complain to the “Financial Submit”, just for the adjustment to the measures that have to be applied by the tip of June, the fees have multiplied, in comparison with a 12 months in the past, whereas the cost with “black cash” is a prerequisite for hiring knowledgeable to scrub your lot.
“We’ve been caught within the web of fraudsters who make a fortune,” says 60-year-old Nikos, describing his journey to scrub a two-acre property, close to the Hippodrome Markopoulos. “It is a matter of provide and demand. 1000’s of residents are in search of employees to clear their plots, and only a few are keen to do it. So now they ask for what they need. Two years in the past, the identical man charged me 1,000 euros for cleansing and 200 euros for selecting up the grass and branches. Now just for the cleansing he requested for a similar “black” plot of land 2,500 euros”, complains Mr. Nikos.
For his half, 55-year-old Kosmas owns a plot of land with a home in Porto Rafti. “I went to the Municipality of Markopoulos and requested them for an inventory of specialised cleansing crews, in order that the job could possibly be achieved correctly and I would not should pay “black cash”. In my space, these jobs are often achieved by immigrants, lots of whom can not work legally,” he notes.
1000’s of euros for an engineering exhibition
Those that even went a step additional and sought out a technical guide (engineer forester, agronomist) to put in writing a threat report for them noticed their wallets shrink. “I’ve a vacation dwelling on a three-acre plot in Kalyvia, Attica, in a settlement of the Municipality of Saronikos, about 300 meters from a forest space. I requested an engineer to attract up a threat report for me and he requested me for five,000 euros, which I haven’t got, whereas for the technical report an extra 700 to 1,000 euros shall be wanted,” says Mr. Prokopis.
Comparable is the journey of Mrs. Alexandra who owns a residence in an space inside the plan of the Municipality of Dionysos. “For now I’ve solely submitted a accountable assertion to the municipality. My engineer, with a tough estimate he made, calculates that I’ll want 100,000 euros to do what the municipality specifies inside the subsequent 12 months or till 2026 relying on the diploma of threat that shall be decided. The roof is manufactured from tiles with an inner wood body. So it must be uprooted and the wooden eliminated. Half the home windows are outdated plastic and can should be changed, the fencing must be modified and way more. In different phrases, they’re forcing me to promote my home and go away,” she emphasizes.
The constitutional proper to property is affected
Aside from the extraordinary reactions of the Panhellenic Federation of Actual Property House owners (POMIDA), but in addition of the Central Union of Municipalities of Greece (KEDE), the Ombudsman lately additionally took a place concerning the obligations arising from the Fireplace Safety Regulation.
Particularly, as acknowledged in a doc despatched to the related ministers and deputy ministers of the Ministries of the Surroundings, Local weather Disaster and the Inside, the disputed KYA of the Regulation “violates the constitutionally assured proper to property (Article 17), as the prices of implementing the necessary hearth security measures are prohibitive and people residents who’re unable to pay them will essentially be directed in direction of the choice of transferring their properties or shall be liable to pay excessive administrative fines, which don’t have any correspondence with the fines supplied for within the current hearth rules”.
No Advocate in transferring the duties of the state to the residents
On the similar time, persistent pathologies of the Greek administration go away gaps in hearth safety. The Citizen’s Advocate factors out that the state to at the present time permits building exterior the plan, with out having been preceded by a particular spatial planning, with out having resolved the problems of public roads in relation to the buildability of the fields, and so on., whereas, it has judged as tolerable and the formations of settlements inside forests and forest areas, with the corresponding provisions for residential densities.
“Greater than seemingly, properties stay inside forest and reforestation areas which, even when they’ve been judged as finally arbitrary, usually are not demolished”, states, amongst different issues, the Advocate additionally stating delays within the implementation of fireside safety initiatives inside forests and forest areas. The administration and the related businesses are chargeable for taking measures towards fires with the suitable preventive actions (opening of fireside roads, undergrounding of electrical energy cables, cleansing of areas adjoining to the highway community, and so on.), in addition to for hearth combating. “From the above it follows that the state is just not constitutionally acceptable (Articles 24 and 17 of the Structure) to switch, to a big extent, the duties of defending property and the atmosphere from fires to personal people, with extreme, certainly financially burdensome situations for them”, says the Ombudsman.
Threat for insurance coverage insurance policies
On the similar time, in line with the Ombudsman, the query of the problem of insuring the property towards hearth will even come up, as a result of it’s estimated that the insurance coverage firms would require the observance of the precise measures earlier than coming into right into a contract, whereas the insurance coverage insurance policies which might be at present in drive, it is extremely seemingly that they are going to be modified with extra burdensome insurance coverage premiums for these residents who haven’t carried out the prescribed works.
In conclusion, the Ombudsman estimates that the measures, that are already in drive with the hearth rules, are full and ample each for the safety of the atmosphere and properties. Nonetheless, incidents of failure to scrub up land ought to in all probability be met with larger fines, in order that residents are negligent in taking the required actions. Additionally, it’s needed to arrange, employees and help the competent companies of the Municipalities in order that extra checks might be carried out regularly. The Fireplace Safety Regulation, in line with the Advocate, will result in an extreme monetary burden on residents and in any case, current properties must be exempted from the applying of the precise provisions.
The brand new technology of arbitrators and the unanswered questions
Objections to the implementation of the Fireplace Safety Regulation have additionally been expressed by the engineers of the Technical Chamber of Greece, contemplating that it can’t be applied instantly. Particularly, as mentioned, based mostly on the proposal of Mr. Ioannis Dam. Kyriakopoulos, within the Steering Committee of the TEE, there are numerous factors that want clarification, adjustments and informing the residents, akin to, amongst others, the next:
It should make clear which of those that personal property inside a radius of 300 meters from the boundaries of groves and surrounding greenery are liable. For instance, Alsos Veikou and Golf Glyfadas seem as forest areas within the posting of forest maps.
The Regulation perceives the countryside as a recipient of medium and excessive earnings cottages and fully ignores the varied nature of the makes use of and desires of its everlasting residents. That the countryside is stuffed with agro-livestock buildings, crafts and the primary residence of people that can not allocate 5 years of labor earnings to fence the household discipline.
How will deforestation be applied with out violating forest regulation on properties positioned in or involved with forests?
The Regulation requires for walling works the preparation of 1000’s of surveys and the issuance of a whole lot of 1000’s of Small-Scale Works Approvals by the profitable city planners, a titanic process that would wish to occupy all out there engineers for many years!
It creates a brand new technology of defaulters as it’s nearly not possible for low- and middle-income house owners to conform.
Monetary help and even tax incentives are proposed for the implementation of the required changes to the present buildings inside an inexpensive time period. Additionally, there are dozens of questions which might be gathered in technical places of work, municipal companies, forestry companies, and so on. For instance, what is going to occur if the technical report proposes altering wood frames or different interventions that is probably not in keeping with buildings positioned in conventional settlements? What is going to occur with the recycling of the collected biomass?
What applies in the present day to fireplace safety measures – Extensions
So far as the Fireplace Safety Regulation is worried, the Ministry of Surroundings and Vitality has prolonged the deadline for the implementation of the measures till June 21. Within the first section, for the present buildings, the Threat Evaluation Type and the Technical Report with their accompanying knowledge, the declaration of software of the hearth security measures and cleansing of the plots must be submitted. It considerations forest properties inside and outdoors the plan, everlasting or summer season residence, of any date of building and people which might be to be erected.
Nonetheless, a suspension was given for compliance initiatives by way of the provisions of every technical report, e.g. building of a one-meter-high pen with non-combustible supplies, set up of fire-resistant exterior frames, set up of a metallic non-combustible display, substitute of gutters, filling of gaps with non-combustible supplies and even roof substitute, set up of a water sprinkler system, and so on.
The variety of residents who shall be compelled to adjust to the precise measures is extraordinarily giant, because the mentioned KYA establishes horizontal provisions (with the one partial differentiation parameter of the necessary works being the property’s threat scale).
Additionally, the Ministry of Local weather Disaster gave residents an extension till the tip of June, as a way to declare the cleansing of their plots and uncovered areas of property, on the platform of the Nationwide Register of Compliance with Preventive Fireplace Safety Measures. It considerations city properties and the cleansing course of consists of, amongst different issues, felling and removing of dry and damaged bushes and branches, in addition to branches which might be in direct contact with buildings, thinning of brushy vegetation, transportation of cleansing residues, and so on.
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