Wassenhoven Greece EU Compendium of Spatilal Planning Systems

The Future of Circular Cities?! Planning for sustainable and inclusive communities, 2025

This paper sheds light on aspects of the privatisation of spatial planning in Greece during the economic crisis through today. The focus lies on a particular planning instrument, the Special Urban Plan, which became inextricably entwined with the privatisation of land, resources, processes and a shift in spatial imaginaries. Special Urban Plans exemplify planning as an exception in relation to spatial cohesion, development, governance and public participation. They tend to become a normalised exemption, although they stand in striking contrast to the goals of sustainability and social inclusivity. At the same time, they fail to meet the crucial challenges of rising inequalities and climate vulnerability.

Conference “Rethinking planning law in the crisis era: new scope, new tools, new challenges”. Platform of Experts in Planning Law (Technion – Israel Institute of Technology) and Graduate Programme “State and Public Policy” of the University of Athens, 2013

This paper, presented at a conference, approaches the role of spatial planning at a time of economic and fiscal crisis.

International Journal of Sustainable Agricultural Management and Informatics, 2015

During the decade of 1980s, a new approach to spatial planning at national and regional scales in Greece seemed to open-up new possibilities of coping with the country's complex spatial development and land use-related problems. However, it was soon realised that the planning system was ineffective in handling these problems. A crucial question could therefore be raised: what went wrong with Greek spatial planning during the 1980s and why? We will try to address this question by analysing the major spatial economic trends in Greece during the 1980s, examining the various aspects of the planning system, reviewing existing approaches and sketching out the main lines of an alternative one based on an analysis of state-society relations over spatial issues.

Fereniki Vatavali, Maria Zifou Seminars of the Aegean Ermoupolis, 4-8 September 2012

European Planning Studies, 2019

This paper argues the changing nature of spatial planning in the recent decades, under the light of the relevant progressions that have been taking place at the EU level. It is suggested that the EU territorial cohesion discourse and its relevant-although less developed-policy tools are in line with and promote a new orientation of spatial planning that is characterized of an integrated approach which is spatially aware and aims to guide development in order to avoid or minimize spatial imbalances and to increase the effectiveness of policies according to the territorial characteristics. This is an attempt to bring into light the new dimensions of spatial planning through the analysis of the relevant European concepts. In the first part, the developments at the EU level and their contribution to this new approach of planning are analysed. Following that, what is examined is how these developments and the EU territorial cohesion perspective influenced the Greek planning system and, more specifically, how the new traits of planning have been integrated and the degree to which the new approach is reflected.

Athens Social Atlas, 2017

Land

The lack of defined land uses in most parts of Greece (80%) has led to multiple environmental problems and phenomena of informal (arbitrary) construction with secondary side effects, such as a lack of basic technical and environmental infrastructure, unfair competition among private investors, the strengthening of climate change (increase in the number of urban diffusion) and the decline of natural and cultural resources. The Greek urban policy, over the last 100 years, has not succeeded in limiting these problems and for that reason the new Law 4759/2020 is expected to promote the development of a more efficient spatial planning system reform implemented through the Local Urban Plans (LUPs) and the Special Urban Plans (SUPs) that are funded by the Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF). These programs will contribute to the preservation of cultural heritage and to the development of productive activities at both local and national levels, especially on the sectors of renewable ener...

transcript Verlag eBooks, 2015

Wassenhoven L (2018) The parallel universes of rhetoric and practice: Lessons learnt from spatial and urban planning reforms in Greece. In Farinós Dasí J, Peiró E (eds) (2018) Territorio y estados / Territory and states. Tirant Humanidades, Valencia, p 347-372 , 2018

This paper sheds light on the gap between theoretical rhetoric about planning and practice in reality, drawing on the experience of the author. The author warned at the outset that this was not supposed to be a conventional theoretical essay or a paper analyzing empirical material or an erudite study of the Greek urban and spatial planning system. He explained that this is a personal statement, an account of personal experience. Part of this experience drew evidence from the process of drafting a new law, but this was by no means the only source. The observations and remarks included here have therefore the erratic character of reality as it unfolds in front of the eyes of the observer and participant, although an effort was made to provide a theoretical framework. Still, the author hopes that he has made a contribution to the development of a more viable planning system.

Land Readjustment (LR), as a tool for urban development, was implemented initially in Greece, at the beginning of the 20th century, indicating thus a rapid response of the planning community to the quest for a more efficient land acquisition tool, quite at the same period as in other European countries. A few years later, specific legal provisions for the use of LR to the implementation of town plans (Ktimatikes Omades) were incorporated in the Law Decree of July 17, 1923. However, the implementation of LR was very limited compared to other traditional tools, such as expropriation, and was restricted to a few cases, mainly when there was an urgent need for the implementation of town plans after extensive disasters i.e. bombings, fires and earthquakes. A new form of Land Readjustment, apparently influenced from the relevant French institution of " Remembrement Urbaine " and the German " Baulandumlegung " , was legislated in the late '70s, in the context of the Planning Reform that took place following the Greek Constitution in 1975 (Article 24). However, its application has been once again limited to a few cases. In view of the above, a fundamental research question apparently arises: which are the predominant factors that determined the limited implementation of Land Readjustment in Greece? How LR is related to other innovative ideas, tools and practices which have been transposed in the domestic planning system fundamentally influenced by foreign experience? The paper aspires to present the Greek experience in Land Readjustment, providing an analytical overview of its basic characteristics (legal framework, related policies and applications). It seeks further to shed light into the implementation gap between laws, policies and practice of LR, to discuss how the application of LR is related to the basic features of the land administration and spatial planning system in Greece and to investigate its prospects, with regard to the current challenges of Spatial and Land policies in the country.