Heraklion deputy mayor says 300 buildings are flagged as dangerous after debris falls onto streets
Heraklion’s deputy mayor for urban planning, Nikos Gialitakis, says the city has roughly 300 buildings listed as dangerous or dilapidated, a number he describes as constant even as some structures are repaired and new ones are added to the list.
The issue has drawn renewed attention after two incidents on Sunday in which building sections detached and fell into the street, in the Agia Triada and Poros neighborhoods of Heraklion. No injuries were reported in either case.
In Agia Triada, parts of a balcony broke off a multi-storey building and landed on the street, damaging a parked motorcycle underneath. According to the Agia Triada Environmental Association, the building was among those already flagged as dangerous; the group says it has recorded hazardous conditions at 110 buildings in the wider area.
“The incident occurred last Sunday at a multi-storey building that has been abandoned for several years, which has left its concrete frame deteriorated. There have been repeated incidents involving this building, including pieces breaking off before. It is uninhabited and unfinished. We had flagged it, and it was among the two or three cases for which we had requested urgent intervention. We had even been told by the urban planning department that they had contacted the owner and reached some agreement for repairs to go ahead. Unfortunately, in this case, time caught up with us first,” Vangelis Grigorakis, president of the Agia Triada Environmental Association, told neakriti.gr.
Grigorakis said the association’s count of 109 buildings, plus the Bodosakeio school building, brings the total to 110, adding that the number of problem structures keeps rising as time takes its toll.
Calls for a permanent monitoring mechanism
The Agia Triada Environmental Association is calling for a permanent mechanism to record, assess and address dilapidated buildings, involving both the municipality and the Technical Chamber of Greece (TEE).
Grigorakis proposed a joint action committee of engineers, set up through a programme agreement between TEE and the municipality and funded by the municipality, to take over recording and assessing dangerous buildings across the city, not just in Agia Triada. He said the process should also speed up the route from urban planning assessment to prosecutorial referral for owners who ignore orders, and floated the possibility of the municipality demolishing the most dangerous buildings and billing owners for the cost and any fines — though he said this would require a dedicated municipal fund and is ultimately a matter of political decision.
Municipality: responsibility lies with owners
Deputy mayor Gialitakis said responsibility for a building’s structural condition rests solely with its owner, and that owners of abandoned or unused buildings in particular need to be attentive, since time and weather cause increasing vulnerability in a building’s structure.
On the Agia Triada building, he said it was uninhabited with an old load-bearing structure showing clear signs of wear from age. On the second incident, in Poros, he said it involved a cantilevered section detaching on Argyrokastrou street.
“In both cases, the urban planning department acted immediately, as required, drawing up site inspection reports and locating the owners. What we ask owners to do is to appoint a private engineer and visit our department to obtain the necessary permits and carry out the required repair work to remove the hazard. I have pointed out many times that owners cite financial difficulty, which is real and understandable, or a complex ownership situation. Unfortunately, however, the law makes no exceptions regarding owners’ obligations,” Gialitakis said.
He added that the department, despite being understaffed, remains open to assisting owners and private engineers with the procedures needed to remove hazards, and noted that while some owners do comply after being notified or inspected, new buildings continually join the list of roughly 300 properties requiring hazard removal of varying scale.
Gialitakis said it is preferable for owners to cooperate on resolving problems with their buildings rather than face legal exposure should a tragic incident occur. He also called for changes to the legal framework so that owners could face stiff fines, similar to penalties already in place for uncleared, overgrown plots of land, saying no such penalty framework currently exists for dangerous buildings.
“That framework already exists in many European Union countries, and I think Greece needs to look at this too, so that everyone understands their obligation — not only toward their own property, but above all toward public safety and their fellow residents,” he said.
The incidents come amid a period of unsettled weather in Crete; Greece’s national weather service has recently issued an orange warning for Crete over storms and heavy rain, with forecasters also flagging further storms and winds up to 8 Beaufort expected to affect the island.
