Informal settlements in Greece : the mystery of missing information and the difficulty of their integration into a legal framework
Potsiou, Chryssy A. & Charalabos Ioannidis
According to the rough available statistics, it is estimated that approximately 25% of the housing construction in Greece has informalities. The most common informality is construction in small, legally-owned land parcels, in areas having no formal urban plan, which is often accomplished simply by proceeding without a building license. The existing informalities resulted from various causes, among them insufficient spatial planning, old and complex legislation, lack of housing policy, bureaucracy, outdated public administration structure. The state attempts to integrate these informal settlements into a legal status by extending the formal urban plans, but this is a costly and time consuming procedure. This paper investigates the development of informal settlements in the Hellenic state, makes a distinction between the situation in Greece in comparison to other countries, identifies and classifies the causes, the infrastructure, the land policy, and the major problems these informalities create in land management, environmental protection, the land market, and finally to the national economy. A categorization of the informalities and their impact to the modern society is attempted.
Event: 5th FIG Regional Conference for Africa : Promoting Land Administration and Good Governance
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