On the subject of New building regulation (NOK) and commenting on the possibility of manufacturers’ appeal to the European Court of Justice, the Minister of Environment and Energy Stavros Papastavrou He stressed that the government, as it respects the decisions of the Council of State (CoE), will also respect any decisions of the European Court of Justice, if a matter arises.
As he said in an interview with Alpha: “In recent decades in our country we have had regulatory ambiguity, polynomial and arbitrariness, a reality that did not allow for rational urban planning. Today, 227 local urban planning and 18 special urban planning plans are being created, which will lead to urban planning in 80% of our country. “
“This historical reform is completed with the codification for the first time of urban planning legislation, but also with the digitization of the Land Registry”among other things, the minister said. At the same time, he stressed that within the next 10 days the ministry is proceeding with a presidential decree, which will clarify key issues, such as: What is the concept of “starting work” in order to avoid misunderstandings.
“Within this regulatory ambiguity, the Ministry is obliged to create legal security so that every owner and each manufacturer knows what is true and what is not true, thereby enhancing building activity,” Papastavrou said.
He made a special reference to the issue of the settlements of less than 2,000 inhabitants and the decisions of the CoE in 2005, 2017 and 20219, to cancel the opportunity given to the prefects in 1985 to delimit settlements. As he pointed out, the CoE ruled that the prefects should not have the power to demarcate settlements, since they do not have the scientific competence for this, while their delimitation had a degree of arbitrariness.
“Of the 10,000 settlements in the country, there are 150 settlements in Rethymnon and Pelion in which the CoE canceled the boundaries set by the prefects, so building permits could not be issued there”he said, pointing out that this was at risk of the rest of the settlements, which would be exposed in the event of an appeal, a problem solved by the Presidential Decree. “The issue exists in Zone C – the zone at the boundaries of the settlements – which the CoE did not accept in the Presidential Decree. For this zone, wanting to create legal security, we proceed immediately with the processing of legislation, which will be harmonized with legislation and case law, but will at the same time take into account the need to support small settlements and decentralization, while also providing answers.
The Minister of Environment and Energy gave answers and about the new maritime spatial planning announced by the government, stressing that the protection of marine zones and marine ecosystem is a key priority of the ministry. Given the mark of the next moves, he recalled the announcement of the Prime Minister, Kyriakos Mitsotakis from last year’s event of the 9th International Conference “Our Ocean Conference” held in Athens, which concerned the creation of two maritime parks in the South Aegean. 2025. “As the prime minister said, they will be banned in these parks, and there will be a sophisticated, special electronic surveillance system to protect the ecological viability of these maritime parks,” he said.
“For the first time we have a strategic planning for how we organize our seas and human activity in them. It is something we owe to future generations, “Mr Papastavrou concluded.