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Study shows Elaionas area will suffer if factories relocate October 24, 2006

IPE-IOBE study shows area will suffer if factories relocate

Plans for the construction of the Panathinaikos soccer stadium do not include any arrangement for the future of some 100 businesses that employ around 450 people and have been in the area for 20-30 years.

Change is taking place rapidly. In spring of 2007, two new metro stations will open, one in Votanikos (Gazi station) and another in Elaionas (Panathinaikos). Attiko Metro (http://www.ametro.gr) has also contracted for the construction of an 8.8-hectare train depot at Elaionas, which is scheduled for delivery by the end of next year.

Bus terminal > A little to the west, construction of a new KTEL intercity bus terminal is planned.

“The new terminal will serve the 32 KTEL buses now at Kifissou Avenue and the 11 now at Liosion Street, and is estimated to cater to 35-40,000 passengers a day,” Kifissou KTEL’s president, Sofoklis Fatsios, said. “The station will cover 9 hectares, of which 2.2 hectares will be devoted to stores. The construction budget is 50 million euros and completion time is 18 months.”

All the studies for the new terminal have been finished but the project has struck a snag. “The studies were submitted in 2004. We are waiting for the Ministry of the Environment, Planning and Public Works (YPEHODE) to decide.”

It has also been decided to build a mosque on a 12.1-hectare plot owned by the Navy Chiefs of Staff.

These interventions in the center of an area that many consider to have been deliberately run down, have already affected the price of real estate. And the expansion toward the west of a new residential and entertainment center from Gazi to Votanikos and the neighborhood of Akadimia Platonos (Plato’s Academy), as well as the creation of an entertainment center in Rendi area have begun to exert pressure on the area around Elaionas.

“The cleanup of the area, which was decided in two presidential decrees (1049 D/95 and 742 D/96) did not go ahead,” analyst Eleni Grigoriou from the Athens Chamber of Industry said. “The municipalities involved, Athens, Tavros, Rendi, Peristeri and Aegaleo, have implemented the decrees only to a very limited extent and in substance things have remained the way they were. In fact, in recent years, the municipalities have been pushing in the reverse direction, to change land use so as to get rid of the factories and permit the creation of entertainment areas.”

According to a study by the Regional Development Institute (IPE) and the Foundation for Economic and Industrial Research (IOBE), removing the factories from Elaionas would have unfavorable consequences.

“It isn’t realistic to ask the factories to leave Elaionas,” Panteion University Vice Rector Thanassis Papadaskalopoulos and lecturer Manolis Christofakis said. “The Elaionas area has retained its economic strength and still has businesses in primary and tertiary industries that make a significant contribution to employment and incomes on a local and regional level. We believe that its productive character should be preserved by the reorganization of land use and the designation of zones for each type of activity.”

The 1995 presidential decree stipulates that tanneries, metal-plating works, pottery kilns and cement factories must leave Elaionas by November 2007. But the IPE-IOBE study deems that implementing the decision without first arranging a site for them to transfer to will create serious problems in the market.

The study, which was conducted on behalf of the Athens Regulatory Plan Organization, found there are some 2,500 businesses in Elaionas, of which around 40 percent are medium-sized. On average, the businesses have been in operation for 20 years.

Given the anarchic development of the area, and the new dynamic arising from the projects, it is vital that not only Votanikos but also the area surrounding Elaionas be better organized.

“There is no organized strategy, but many municipalities are exerting pressure in different directions because they have different plans for the area,” said Papadaskalopoulos. “But this is not the way to achieve the right development of economic activity, or to find fertile ground for large projects.”

“Land use is a mess at Elaionas now,” architect Ivi Nanopoulou said. “The position of the Panathinaikos soccer stadium creates a new dynamic but it is a local project that does not guarantee any broader development. This is where the state should come in and deal with the area as a whole, as they did in London with Wembley Stadium. There must be a strategic plan for the market to follow, rather than letting the market shape the area.”

Elaionas is ready for new development October 24, 2006

Real estate sales have shot up, as have prices, amid growing pressure to site location for a new residential and entertainment complex

Elaionas 2006: The Panathinaikos soccer stadium, two metro stations and a new intercity bus terminal are in the pipeline. These major projects, which are an attempt to upgrade the area, have already made the price of real estate take off in this area in western Athens.

On the region’s outskirts, multiplex cinemas, live-music venues and bars are taking the place of machine shops and warehouses, as new entertainment locales develop. But alongside these bright business plans there are still 2,500 businesses in secondary and tertiary industries which have been in operation for decades.

Rapid changes in the area have brought up the issue of whether Elaionas will develop by means of any overall strategic plan that would impose order in the area or if it will be left to its fate.

Construction of the new 40,000-seat Panathinaikos soccer stadium (PAO), a 6,000-seat indoor field and a 50,000-square-meter mall was announced in the spring and approved in summer.

Before talks between the City of Athens and Panathinaikos, which had formed a special company, Dipli Anaplasi (DA), for the purpose, were completed, large business groups started seeking out real estate in the area, and prices shot up as much as 20 percent. The biggest sale was announced just a few days ago. Babis Vovos Diethnis Techniki SA announced the purchase of two large blocks of land, with a total area of more than 10 hectares, from ETMA and its subsidiary ELLATEX in the area being refurbished for 50 million euros.

Meanwhile, Dipli Anaplasi is trying to get things moving. “In the next 20 days, the city will acquire the areas belonging to the National Bank, 7.5 hectares for 20.3 million euros, and ETMA, around 5.3 hectares in exchange for the famous block of land No. 45” DA chief Theodoros Skylakakis said. “Expropriations of the remaining properties in the refurbishment area will be announced in early November.”

Some residents refuse to leave > The area in Votanikos where the new Panathinaikos soccer stadium (PAO) is to be built is deserted and full of trash. Its refurbishment will help to attract development to all of Elaionas.

Plans for the construction of the Panathenaikos soccer stadium (PAO) do not include any arrangement for the future of some 100 businesses that currently operate on the site. As Athens Chamber of Industry President Pavlos Ravanis said, those businesses employ around 450 people and have been in the area for 20-30 years. “We haven’t received any information from anyone,” complained one of the local businessmen, who has a factory in the neighborhood. “We are in favor of the refurbishment but it cannot be done by wiping us off the map. We’ve made inquiries everywhere and they keep sending us from pillar to post. There is no plan to transfer us to Elaionas, nor has anyone mentioned compensation. We will fight, by all legal means.”

That view is shared by a local family, one of the few that are permanent residents in the neighborhood. “When you have lived in a run-down neighborhood for 60 years, you hope that things will improve one day. At long last, the metro comes, there is a revamp and then they throw us out by mandatory expropriation,” the family protested. “We are determined to appeal to the Council of State; it’s our last weapon against the injustice that has been done to us.”