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A complaint has been made to the Real Estate Services of Piraeus and Cyclades, the Greek Police and the Naxos Prosecutor’s Office Municipality of Thira for arbitrary constructions on the foreshore and on the beach at place “Hanas” in Vlychada. At this point it was working beach bar for more than 15 years. About six months ago, the business was sold to large foreign company which operates in cruise on the island. “Travellers arriving on the company’s cruise ships at the port of Fira are taken by coach to the point advertised as private club to eat and drink and then return to the ship. The region of Vlychada is unique in terms of geomorphology and the intervention that has been carried out is very large”, says to “K” the president of the Municipal Council of Thira, Georgia Law.
Travelers arriving on the cruise ships of the company that owns the beach bar are taken by coach to what is advertised as a private club.
In order to facilitate access and allow buses to reach the former dirt road that did not reach the sea, it was widened and paved. In addition, the coastline was shaped by the transportation of boulders, which also “is an intervention that changes the landscape and affects the sea currents,” adds Ms. Nomikou. And it is these sea currents together with the sun and the wind that carved the ash and created the unique landscape of the rocks in Vlychada.
According to the engineer’s report accompanying the complaint of the Municipality of Thira“in the Presidential Decree of 1990 concerning the off-plan areas in Santorini, building is prohibited at a distance of 100 meters from the seafront and 15 meters from the beach zone. Most of the constructions are located within the beach zone and one is even located within the beach zone. This is a flagrant violation of the law.”
One question, of course, is how the sale of the business proceeded. An engineer active in the Cyclades points out that in Real Estate Service of Cyclades based in Syros employs only three people, a supervisor and two employees. “They are responsible for all the islands of the Cyclades, which we know how much construction pressure they are under. Which island should they go to first”, he points out.
Except for the arbitrary constructions another issue that has agitated the inhabitants of the island is the effort to restrict access to this beach. “The license of the beach bar was issued in 2007. It operated on a different basis, on a smaller scale, now it will welcome much more people. The president of the Municipal Port Fund came down to see the area and was denied access.” says the mayor of Santorini, Nikos Zorzos, to “K”.. The Municipality of Thira, with its complaint, requests an immediate and complete investigation to protect the communal nature of the seafront and the beach and to prevent them from occurring in an area of particular importance for the island.
“The city council made a decision that they are against any closed structure on the beach. Only the customers of the particular company that brings them to the island and provides them with access to this point come. It’s a practice that if it works here, it will go elsewhere as well”, adds Ms. Legal.
