14/12/2024, 10:36 π.μ.

The Citizens' Movement of Paros
December 2024

The Paros Citizens' Movement has already highlighted the urgency of the problem of massive construction and urbanisation of our island, which, especially in recent years, seems to have gone out of control and logic.
Particularly in the Assembly of the Movement of April 19, 2024, the interest of the members of the Movement in this issue and the need for interventions in the direction of limiting building on the island became obvious.

As a first step in this direction, it was proposed and adopted after an ongoing and open discussion to exert political pressure on the Local and Central Governance by publishing a petition calling for the implementation of specific measures for the immediate restriction of mainly outside the zoning area building.

The petition, initially co-signed by 6 Parian Associations, was published in June 2024 and, at this moment, has now gathered 2,646 signatures from residents of the island but also urban planners, architects, lawyers and friends of Paros from all over the country.

At the end of August, it was submitted to the president of the Municipal Council of the Municipality of Paros and the building department. It was also sent to the relevant ministries and members of Parliament for the Cyclades. But, we have yet to see any substantial change in the state of affairs. Building permits continue to be issued as usual, and buildings on every hillside and plain of the island spring up in abundance from one day to the next.

With this in mind, and after realising that political pressure did not yield visible results, a group of members of the Paros Citizens' Movement proceeded to a next, quite painful, but more effective step. Namely the judicial route.

A plea was recently filed with the Council of State on behalf of the Hellenic Society for the Protection of Culture and the Environment (ELLET) and six residents of Paros. The plea seeks to annul a building permit issued by the Town Planning Department of Paros in 2024. This request arises during a time when the Council of State had clearly established strict conditions regarding construction on land outside zoning areas, as outlined in decision 176/2023.
This trial puts four key questions for our island on the table. Namely:
Which roads give building rights?

How compatible are the regulations on 'cave houses' with the Parian landscape and the approved General Urban Plan (GUP) of Paros?

How can dry stone terraces and paths be destroyed when the Paros GUP expressly prohibits it?
How tolerable is it to permit "water features" (which we all know are steadily turning into swimming pools) on mountains on an island that has never been free of water scarcity risks?
These four issues are not specific to this particular permit. On the contrary, they concern dozens and hundreds of permits that have already been issued and are still being issued by the Town Planning Department of Paros. Unfortunately, however, there is no appropriate legal way to challenge many building permits in a single lawsuit. Selecting one of the building permits was necessary to highlight the issues involved in almost all of them.

We regret that political inaction, if not political support, for deeply destructive choices and long-standing pathologies on our island has led to the necessity of litigation, with all the unpleasantness that this brings for both complainants and defendants. But, our regret does not negate the necessity. It had to be done, and it was done. In a favoured and functional state, everything would have been more wisely and gently regulated, and the institutional actors would have taken timely care to protect what needs protection without forcing citizens to bear disproportionate burdens. This has not happened in the case of our island. And when irreversible destruction is advancing inexorably, the options are narrowing.

The Citizens' Movement supports the initiative of ELLET and the private individuals who have filed the petition for annulment. A lawsuit that seeks to force the application of logic and constitutional imperatives in the protection of our island, an island designated since 1979 as a place of "special natural beauty", and which is currently being rapidly destroyed in ways that are quasi-legitimate, but not legal.