Greece: New law to stop homes in forests

[questionmark]

New law to stop homes in forests

A change to the law is being planned to create three-member regional committees that will have the power to order the destruction of any houses built on burned forestland.

Sunday’s Kathimerini has learnt that the Environment and Public Works Ministry is preparing a draft law with the aim of providing further protection to the areas of the Peloponnese and Evia that were ravaged by fires this summer.

The main crux of the bill is to provide a small body with unprecedented powers to knock down any structures that spring up in the charred areas. Under the new law, other authorities, such as the police, would be obliged to cooperate with the regional panel.

At present, people who own illegally built homes can continuously appeal decisions to demolish their properties, thereby holding up the process. However, the proposed law would prevent any appeal from homeowners. If the committee were later found to have wrongly ordered a property to be knocked down, its owner would be compensated.

Source: Kathemerini

[Bear's Quest]

Any homes!? Even those homes of owners that purchased the land legally before the fire!

What is an illegal home? By someone elses definition who has no claim?

Land hourders or land grabbers! They just use politics to get what they want.

[questionmark]

Any homes!? Even those homes of owners that purchased the land legally before the fire!

What is an illegal home? By someone elses definition who has no claim?

Land hourders or land grabbers! They just use politics to get what they want.

Since the late 1800s it is illegal to build a home in a designated forested area. I doubt there will be many existing homes to tear down, besides areas with houses were always declared "urbanized" area, which is why land speculators liked to lay fires and build structures without permit in the hope that the area would get re-zoned.

And the definition of an illegal home is : One build without a building permit.

[ships-cat]

Hee hee ... must be fun to serve on that committee.

Bet all the local post offices run out of brown envelopes

Meow Purr.

[questionmark]

Hee hee ... must be fun to serve on that committee.

Bet all the local post offices run out of brown envelopes

Meow Purr.

'round here the bad ones are blue....