A government proposal to strip municipalities of urban planning authority has ignited heated debate between local government officials and engineers.
The Technical Chamber of Greece (TEE) advocates transferring these services to the Ministry of Environment or, at minimum, to regional governments, arguing that local councils foster micropolitics.
Urban planning should fall under the Ministry of Environment as local municipalities cannot ensure objectivity, TEE President Giorgos Stasinos said on Friday.
The government has been steadily moving in the direction of removing responsibilities from municipalities, citing the goals of improving efficiency and cracking down of bureaucracy.
On the other hand, municipal leaders are preparing to fight back.
Grigoris Konstantellos, mayor of Vari-Voula-Vouliagmeni, warned that the move crosses a red line.
“We’re ready to take this to the Council of State,” he stressed, referring to the country’s highest administrative court.
“This situation has been building up for many years: everything passing through a digital pipeline, with no intermediaries, and access to information (and thus power) being held by the one managing the platform – in this case, the Technical Chamber of Greece,” he said.
Urban planning services were transferred to municipalities in 2010 under the Kallikratis plan but remain understaffed. Only half of Greece’s municipalities have established their own urban planning offices, leaving many reliant on outdated structures from the previous regional governance system.
Engineers argue that transferring responsibilities to the Environment Ministry would improve efficiency and transparency, pointing to the implementation of digital permits as a step forward.
However, Konstantellos and other mayors argue the real motive behind this move is centralizing control over construction approvals and circumventing local resistance to controversial projects.
The state, he said, is dismantling public checks and balances to streamline development, even if it leads to illegal construction.
The government has yet to activate a centralized urban planning service it announced in 2022, leaving uncertainty about how it intends to resolve long-standing issues.