2024-03-03 13:38:58
Forestry reform, off-plan construction and a new framework for dealing with illegals in a bill
The failure of the policy that has been followed throughout the years regarding the treatment of forest arbitrators was admitted yesterday by the Minister of the Environment, Theodoros Skylakakis.
During the presentation of the new forest management policy and answering related questions, he said that no decisions have yet been made on the issue of residential concentrations (houses in forested areas that display functional unity) and there is nothing relevant to announce.
As he said, the priority of the Ministry of Environment today is to convince the Council of State (StE) that more and more forests are being put under management and protection and to encourage the creation of new forests in order to build convincing tools in the direction of creating an environmental balance.
The regulation and the SC
In other words, it seems that at this stage the government has not come up with solid arguments to legislate for the regularization of forest abuses without the risk of the regulation falling to the Council of Ministers, as has happened in the past.
Mr. Skylakakis refrained from saying yet what will be the fate of those citizens who submitted an application to be included in the favorable regulations for residential densities of law 4685/2020, declaring their forest arbitrariness, on the relevant electronic platform developed in collaboration with the Ministry of the Environment with the Hellenic Land Registry, in order to be exempted from demolition for 30 years.
The above-mentioned regulation did not even manage to contribute to the registration of forest illegals, as while the estimate is that in the country a total of about 1 million forest illegals have been built, only 3,500 of our fellow citizens applied for membership, with the payment of a fee of 250 euros, and while now the platform is closed.
Based on the above, the Ministry of the Environment will in the next period submit to the Parliament for a vote a multi-law bill which, in addition to the forest reform, will include a transitional regulation for the off-plan plots and a new framework for the repressive control of arbitrary construction.
What does the proposed bill provide?
In particular, with the proposed regulation for off-plan plots, an attempt is made to resolve it transitionally and until the issuance of the presidential decree of paragraph c of paragraph 15 of article 20 of Law 3937/2011 (A’ 60) regarding the criteria for characterizing roads and in any case not beyond the deadline of 31.12.2025 the issue of the construction of the fields in the non-planned area, which have a face on a street not recognized as public in the sense of urban planning legislation.
This transitional arrangement will set special conditions linked to:
• With the existence of a road to serve the properties as evidenced in aerial photographs prior to July 27, 1977.
• Street width of at least 3.5 meters.
• Provision of an environmental equivalent that will be deposited before the issuance of the building permit in a special account of the Deposits and Loans Fund and will be available exclusively for infrastructure projects and adaptation to climate change, within the administrative boundaries of the municipality where the stadium is located.
It is noted that serious objections have been expressed to the above regulation, with the dominant one being that of the president of the Technical Chamber of Greece (TEE), Giorgos Stassinos, who estimates that the vast majority of citizens who have property outside the plan will still not be able to use it.
Repressive control of arbitrary construction
With reference to the new framework for the repressive control of unauthorized construction in the draft law of the Ministry of the Environment and according to what has been known so far, a system for monitoring the built environment will be instituted, a process for identifying and recording the unauthorized with modern technological means (satellites, drones, artificial intelligence, etc.), system interface with E-adeies, and complaint platform.
Also, the responsibility for the demolition of arbitrary structures will be transferred to the Central Administration, from the Decentralized Administrations, the recent arbitrary constructions will be demolished as a priority, while the penalties and fines for citizens who construct arbitrarily will be increased.
Source naftemporiki.gr