At its meeting on Friday 2 October, the Municipal Committee of the Municipality of Spata–Artemida unanimously approved the Municipality’s Operational Plan for the Provision of Public and Community Spaces (E.S.E.K.K.). The plan lists the areas that the town plan has designated as squares, parks, playgrounds or car parks, but which the Municipality has not yet acquired, and ranks them according to their necessity. The consultant who drew it up had submitted it on 19 June 2023. By the same decision, No. 631/2026, the Committee also carried out the ‘quantitative and qualitative acceptance’ of the deliverable, three years and three and a half months after its submission. The decision was published on the Diafania transparency portal on 7 October.
How did we get here?
In January 2022, the Municipality submitted an application to the Green Fund programme, which funds such projects across the country, and was accepted into the scheme that same year. In December 2022, it commissioned ALDES CONSULTING ENGINEERS I.K.E. to carry out the project for €36,930.92, and the contract was signed on 20 December. According to the recommendation of the Building Services Department, the deliverable includes a geospatial database containing the approved town plan for the entire municipality, public and community spaces that have not been expropriated, are subject to pending legal proceedings or are not in compliance with town planning regulations, documentation of their prioritisation and proposals.
The law providing for these plans, Article 92 of Law 4759/2020, divides land that has not been expropriated into four categories: land where the expropriation has been lifted by a court ruling, areas for which an application for revocation has been submitted, areas where expropriation has been automatically revoked without an amendment to the plan having yet been requested, and all others. Prioritisation is based on the necessity for town planning and the time that has elapsed since the expropriation was imposed.
360 venues at Artemida
The extent of the problem was set out by the Municipality itself a month earlier. Municipal Council Decision 116/2026, from the meeting of 8 September, concerns a plot of land in Local Authority Area 6. It lists 360 public spaces in the Artemida Municipal Unit that are affected by the automatic lifting of expropriations: 204 green spaces, 71 playgrounds, 71 car parks and 14 others. Article 88 of Law 4759/2020, as cited in the decision, stipulates that a road-widening expropriation is automatically lifted 15 years after the approval of the plan that imposed it. At that point, the owner may request that their plot be made buildable. The local authority may reinstate the expropriation only if there are serious town-planning reasons and only if it is able to pay the compensation immediately.
In the same decision, the Financial Services Department confirms that these funds do not exist: the total compensation for the 360 plots ‘exceeds by a multiple’ the municipality’s financial capacity. For this reason, the decision sets out criteria for which plots are to be retained. Those to be retained are those that provide access to the sea or are situated on the seafront, those that are the only or one of the few playgrounds, squares or car parks within their urban planning unit, and those that fulfil a social infrastructure need that cannot be met elsewhere. The plot in Planning Zone 6 is more than 500 metres from the coast and its zone has 65 communal areas, so the expropriation is lifted.
This is not the only decision of its kind. On the ‘Diafania’ transparency portal, we have identified at least 15 decisions by the Municipal Council since May 2023 to lift expropriation orders in urban planning zones of Artemida: in Zones 1–2, 4, 6, 7–8–9, 8, 10–11, 12, 13 and 14. Seven of these were issued on the same day, 28 June 2024. All were issued whilst the plan that was supposed to set out a uniform order of priority was still awaiting receipt.
What does this mean for residents?
For the owner of a plot of land that the town plan has designated as a square or a children’s playground, the E.S.E.K.K. is now the official document that indicates whether the local authority intends to acquire the plot or whether the site will be released. For the neighbourhood, it shows which green spaces and playgrounds will remain only on paper. As of 7 October, the plan had not been published on the council’s website. The Building Services Department, which submitted the proposal, is responsible for this.
And a second plan, on climate change
At the same meeting, by Decision 632/2026, the Committee decided to request 49,600 euros (including VAT) from the Green Fund for an Urban Resilience Plan. Every municipality must have such a plan in place by 31 December 2027. The plan will assess how resilient the municipality’s settlements are to climate change and natural hazards. It will propose measures aimed at reducing local temperatures, retaining rainwater and conserving water, with a focus on vulnerable groups. Applications to the Green Fund must be submitted by 31 December 2026 and will be assessed in order of priority.
Source: Municipality of Spata–Artemida, Municipal Committee decisions 631/2026 and 632/2026 (meeting of 2 October 2026, Diafania 7 October 2026) and Municipal Council Decision 116/2026 (Diafania 14 September 2026).
