Chania Municipal Council to Approve Rents and Return of Traders to Municipal Market

The Chania Municipal Council is set to vote on the reinstatement of former traders at the city’s Municipal Market, along with the monthly rent amounts for their shops and a new open tender for units that received no bids in an earlier process.

According to Tasos Aloglou, deputy mayor for finance at the Municipality of Chania, the council will approve rent levels based on a report by a sworn valuer that was released in recent days, and will set the duration of the new leases at nine years. Aloglou told Nea Kriti and neakriti.gr that the nine-year term reflects negotiations held with traders and the need to apply equal, uniform terms to both new tenants and former traders returning to the market.

Tender for unclaimed shops

The council is also expected to approve a public open tender for shops that found no tenant during the previous process. Aloglou said this concerns ten shops that will be put out to tender by former traders, plus two units that received no bids in the original tender.

The municipality’s stated aim is to secure equal terms for both former and new traders. Shopkeepers are currently awaiting approval of their request to extend the lease period from six to nine years.

Panagiotis Klidaras, president of the Association of Traders of the Chania Municipal Market, said it was important to give former traders more time, since they had not had the chance to prepare a business plan, a process that cannot be completed in three or four days and which depends heavily on cost. He said an extension could help determine whether they wish to keep the shops they were entitled to occupy.

Response to former traders’ concerns

According to Aloglou, the municipal administration intends to accept the extension request, acknowledging that former traders had waited years for the delayed restoration of the market building, a listed monument, to be completed.

Traders who previously held shops at the Municipal Market and are due to return have already expressed dissatisfaction with the proposed rents, which range from €680 to €4,130. Klidaras said it was distressing that these traders had waited five years, only to be given five days to accept or reject a rent that was five or six times higher than before, adding that one of the units carries among the highest rents for a food business in the city of Chania.

Concerns over viability

Traders’ central concern is remaining commercially viable in what they describe as an uncertain new environment. Klidaras said that if the municipal administration wants to honor its commitments, it should reconsider both the rents and the sworn valuer’s assessment, warning that operating a business inside the market will not be easy, that costs are passed on to consumers, and that if consumers cannot afford to shop there, the market risks losing the character and atmosphere it once had.

Following the council’s decisions, the process of signing lease contracts with both former and new traders is expected to move forward, allowing them to receive plans for their shops and begin renovation work.