The Ministry of Environment and Energy is opening a public consultation, within the next few days, on the different cases of building permits that are in progress, pending the Decision of the Council of State (StE) for him New Building Regulations (NOK).

“There are too many different cases of permits that are in progress, which is why we will open – as soon as possible – a public consultation, within the next week, in order to record, in the context of this, the different cases that exist on the issue of permits”said the Minister of Environment and Energy, Theodore Skylakakisspeaking today (13/12) at noon on a radio station.

“The decision of the SC has the difficulty that it refers to a very old law that has the “accident” to be called the New Building Regulation, which was passed in 2012″noted the minister, to add: “From the day of the announcement, the new decision of the Council of State is valid, but we do not know the details. At the moment there is no ambiguity in the law, it is clear that bonuses no longer apply horizontally. What is not clear is what exactly is contained for the individual cases in the decision of the Supreme Court, because we have not yet seen it. There is only one general principle in the CoE announcement. We want to have all the information to know how to intervene, when the decision of the SC comes out. Let’s not jump to conclusions before seeing the decision. Some points will be resolved in the decision, some others need our intervention. We need to prepare in time, to act quickly, because the market cannot remain without clarifications. And we are opening the consultation on the individual cases connected to the start of work. For example, does starting work include a contract that has been made? What is the interpretation in relation to someone who has obtained a building permit, has not started work, but has an investment plan based on this building permit? Is the investment plan work? There are too many such cases, which is why we are opening this consultation to record them.”

According to the Ministry of the Interior, in the context of the consultation, every interested party will be able to describe, publicly, the case of the building permit, while there will also be the alternative of sending, via e-mail, to the services of the ministry, cases of building permits that due to personal data citizens may not want to share them publicly. The exact timeframe of the public consultation will be determined shortly.

The minister also referred to an initiative that will be taken concerning all those who have obtained building permits that include incentives, which they have not started or are in the process of obtaining, but have gone through various phases of the process. “There will be a second intervention that we are planning, by which we will speed up all the processes related to this potential delay. That is, we will fast track the transition from one system to another” noted Mr. Skylakakis.

Additionally, he explained that in the new system “since the CoE tells us that the small interventions that exist for incentives, as well as the larger ones, require local urban planning, we will make an immediate legislative intervention that will institutionalize that in the local urban plans that are now in progress, scholars examine what kind of incentives should be included from those that existed in NOK. Because the CoE did not say that the incentives are wrong or that they are unconstitutional, it said on the contrary that the incentives are constitutional, but they must be subject to local urban planning. At the same time, the CoE has said that local urban planning is the responsibility of the central state.”

In closing, the Minister of Environment and Energy underlined how “at the moment, the largest program of urban planning legislation since the foundation of the Greek state is underway, 700 million urban planning studies. It’s a huge job that will determine a lot of things.”