From: lessgovt@gmail.com   
      
   Building Boom on Mykonos Reveals ‘Wretched’ Side of Greece’s Recovery   
   By Liz Alderman and Niki Kitsantonis, May 20, 2023, NY Times   
      
   The state archaeologists’ mandates have increasingly bumped up against the   
   surge in developments and the pressure from the investors behind them. Mr.   
   Psarros had reported multiple infractions on Mykonos before he was attacked.   
   He was scheduled to    
   testify about the infractions in a trial in November that was postponed, the   
   latest in a string of adjournments since 2018.   
      
   Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis, who faces a contentious election on   
   Sunday, has moved to restore order. Last week, the government ordered one of   
   Mykonos’s most famous beach clubs to close until further notice for building   
   violations, and this week    
   ordered the partial closure of another one.   
      
   He also recently dispatched 100 police officers, as well as financial crime   
   investigators and environmental and building inspectors, to step up controls:   
   More than 75 arrests related to illegal buildings have been made, compared   
   with 36 arrests for all    
   of 2022. The police are also investigating reports of corruption by their own   
   officers for tipping off developers on Mykonos about inspections.   
      
   The government has suspended most new building permits on parts of the island   
   pending the completion of a new zoning blueprint. And Greece’s Supreme Court   
   prosecutor ordered further inquiries into illegal construction, describing the   
   situation on    
   Mykonos as “wretched.”   
      
   Citizen action groups, which work to address concerns in the community, said   
   the government had turned a blind eye.   
      
   “What’s been happening in Mykonos is no secret. State authorities have   
   known for years,” said Markos Pasaliadis, a spokesman for one of the groups,   
   the Movement of Active Citizens. “If the attack on Mr. Psarros hadn’t come   
   to light, everything    
   would continue as it was.”   
      
   Residents lament the chicanery, but they are cautious of speaking badly about   
   the island that many remember nostalgically as a cultural destination made   
   popular by Jacqueline Onassis and Princess Grace in an era of quiet elegance.   
      
   Many are wary of the investors coming from outside their world, and speak   
   nervously about development that in recent years has been accompanied by an   
   influx of black vans with tinted windows and forbidding guards.   
      
   Whether the government’s crackdown will work remains to be seen. Some   
   coastlines are already wrapped in a phalanx of concrete housing. Near Super   
   Paradise Beach, one of the biggest party havens, no fewer than 50 hollow   
   shells blanket the surrounding    
   hillsides, awaiting completion.   
      
   Local authorities are trying to halt new hotel megacomplexes, including a   
   multimillion-euro Four Seasons resort that the government in Athens approved.   
      
   Houses have sprung up like mushrooms along mountain slopes and in areas that   
   had been classified as “unbuildable,” and some villas are larger than   
   authorized. Some construction sites have lookouts, and workers vanish when the   
   police arrive. Ms.    
   Koutsoumba said some small businesses and hotel owners had reported facing   
   pressure to sell their properties to bigger interests.   
      
   Big clubs have also cashed in with extensions of bars, restaurants and walls   
   that block access to public beaches.   
      
   Among them is Nammos, a jet-set playground featuring open-air luxury boutiques   
   and a beachside restaurant, owned by Monterock International, a Dubai-based   
   private equity holding company, and Alpha Dhabi Holding. On Friday, the   
   government called for    
   Nammos to be shuttered, and the police closed one of its beach restaurants. A   
   Nammos lawyer called that order illegal and said the company would contest it.   
   A Greek court has also rejected an appeal by Nammos of a separate government   
   order to demolish    
   illicit structures on the site.   
      
   There is also Principote, a destination for the affluent that for years has   
   expanded over Panormos Beach, along a picturesque bay, despite multiple   
   citations. The authorities have levied a €22 million fine for illicit   
   building extensions, with the    
   option of lowering it to just €500 if the structures are removed.   
   Principote, which is registered to a holding company in the Marshall Islands,   
   has contested the infractions and resulting fines. The police last week   
   ordered it closed until further    
   notice. The company has appealed that decision.   
      
   In 2016, Mykonos’s mayor, Konstantinos Koukas, closed the business after   
   reports of unauthorized building extensions. “But the owners just kept   
   reopening, and there was little we could do,” he said.   
      
   Principote’s activity raised red flags at the Greek Archaeological Service,   
   which has identified antiquities beneath hills near the club. Panormos is   
   among the areas being targeted for inspections by archaeologists. In a media   
   briefing after his    
   hospitalization, Mr. Psarros said archaeologists had requested police   
   protection after facing armed guards when trying to inspect building   
   extensions.   
      
   A lawyer for Principote did not respond to requests for comment.   
      
   Tasos Xidakis, the owner of the neighboring Albatros Club Hotel, has watched   
   the club’s expansion with alarm. In 1989, his father built small bungalows   
   above Panormos, a public beach once accessible to all. Mr. Xidakis and his   
   brother expanded the    
   business into a bucolic hotel complex with a bird’s-eye view of the Aegean   
   Sea — and of Principote.   
      
   Mr. Xidakis watched as Principote morphed from a rustic beach taverna in the   
   1970s into a destination for a party crowd paying thousands of euros for sun   
   beds and sushi. He said his hotel customers had routinely complained about   
   being blocked from the    
   beach.   
      
   The local authorities say that they lack enforcement resources, and that once   
   investigators and police squads leave, the illicit building will probably just   
   start all over again. Mykonos’s police force is small, and its planning   
   authority was relocated    
   to Syros, the administrative capital of the Cycladic islands, after the   
   official in charge on Mykonos was suspended in 2017 for corruption.   
      
   “We want to protect our island, and we’re asking the state for help,”   
   said Mr. Koukas, a two-term mayor. “Everyone wants to build everything in   
   Mykonos, but understaffing creates conditions in which people can break the   
   law.”   
      
      
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