Informal development in Greece : new legislation for formalization, the chances for legalization and the dead capital
Potsiou, Chryssy & Ifigenie Boulaka
This paper presents the new findings of a focused research made by the authors at the National Technical University of Athens on the problem of informal development in Greece, on the newly adopted legal tools used for formalization and on the existing loss of revenue due to the informal construction in the non-planned areas. More specifically, this paper presents the new legislation for formalization of those informal constructions, that are build on legally owned land in the planned and the non-planned areas; the existing informalities refer only to planning and building regulations. The legislation was adopted by the Greek Parliament, in 2010 and 2011. The legislation for the formalization project, the first statistics and the reactions of those involved is briefly described, analyzed and criticized. In addition, this paper presents the first results of a study focused on the rough estimation of the economic impact of the informal development in Greece; starting with the estimation of the capital that is locked in the informal constructions in the non-planned areas that by existing legislation is not taxed, and cannot be legally transferred, inherited, rented and mortgaged, which according to Hernando de Sotoos theory is considered to be a dead capitall. The methodology followed for this research includes literature research of previous publications on informal development in Greece and existing and new legislation; interviews with property owners of informal constructions and the local authorities in the various municipalities and informal communities in Attika, the greater region of Athens, the local real estate agents, the local constructors involved in informal and/or semi-legal construction, the Greek experts (civil engineers, planners, surveyors, etc), and the potential buyers in the new situation established by the newly applied formalization project; and a case study for the estimation of the dead capital in an area with informal development in Attika, on-site visits, field and office work.
Event: FIG Working Week 2012 : Territory, environment, and cultural heritage
Only personal, non-commercial use of this document is allowed.