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If it's August, it must be...
Aug. 2nd, 2006 10:25 am...property development time in Attica.
Coming back from yet another doctor visit (and that's another post), driving around Mt. Ymittos, I noticed a couple big fires on the side away from Athens and one in the neighborhood next to mine in Athens. The two on the less developed side were quite big, burning a lot of cypress and olive trees. Everyone I mentioned these fires to has said, "Yeah, well, it's property development time."
Here's the deal: The Greek government says some land can't be "developed" (I hate the use of that word for "used to support ugly buildings") because it's protected forest. So the developers set fire to it, et voila, it's not protected forest anymore. That's Stage 1. Now, it can be developed, but the developer still doesn't have legal rights and those cost money and paperwork and time. But the law in Greece says that if you've already built a certain amount of structure on some land, it's yours to develop. So Stage 2 is the developers working overnight to erect a wall or something on the burnt land. And that's it - now previously-protected forest becomes high-density apartments or a house for the wealthy.
There are a couple reasons for doing this in August - the fires burn faster and spread faster (not always a good thing - last year one got out of control and burned over 100 acres and a lot of other homes), and many of the authorities are on vacation on the islands or elsewhere in Europe, so you have a slightly longer window to build your wildcat wall.
Of course, there are accidental fires this time of year as well. A friend of mine lives on the side of a hill, at the limit of the buildings. Above her house is bare hill, and it's surrounded by a chain link fence to prevent people setting it on fire. It caught fire anyway last week, and a big crowd gathered to watch - hundreds of people pressed up against the fence, in danger of getting immolated if the fire jumped. My friend was watching from her balcony, ready to evacuate with her pets, when she saw the firefighting plane fly over and dump its load of seawater...on the people. They were all swept down the hillside, washed ass-over-teakettle away from the fire. There may have been casualties - the water rolled a car over - but although it's the talk of her neighborhood, nothing's been in the paper. We're wondering if the plane dropped the water on the people on purpose. Either way, everyone finds this extremely funny and laughs like a drain when they hear about it.
This same hillside burnt during the Olympics. The woman who organized the Olympics lives on the same hill, and had a party at her house, with fireworks, to celebrate the successful Games. One of the fireworks came down on the hill and set fire to it. The firetrucks arrived, but the gate in the chainlink fence had a padlock and chain on it, so the firemen proceeded no further, leaning on their trucks and smoking.
Coming back from yet another doctor visit (and that's another post), driving around Mt. Ymittos, I noticed a couple big fires on the side away from Athens and one in the neighborhood next to mine in Athens. The two on the less developed side were quite big, burning a lot of cypress and olive trees. Everyone I mentioned these fires to has said, "Yeah, well, it's property development time."
Here's the deal: The Greek government says some land can't be "developed" (I hate the use of that word for "used to support ugly buildings") because it's protected forest. So the developers set fire to it, et voila, it's not protected forest anymore. That's Stage 1. Now, it can be developed, but the developer still doesn't have legal rights and those cost money and paperwork and time. But the law in Greece says that if you've already built a certain amount of structure on some land, it's yours to develop. So Stage 2 is the developers working overnight to erect a wall or something on the burnt land. And that's it - now previously-protected forest becomes high-density apartments or a house for the wealthy.
There are a couple reasons for doing this in August - the fires burn faster and spread faster (not always a good thing - last year one got out of control and burned over 100 acres and a lot of other homes), and many of the authorities are on vacation on the islands or elsewhere in Europe, so you have a slightly longer window to build your wildcat wall.
Of course, there are accidental fires this time of year as well. A friend of mine lives on the side of a hill, at the limit of the buildings. Above her house is bare hill, and it's surrounded by a chain link fence to prevent people setting it on fire. It caught fire anyway last week, and a big crowd gathered to watch - hundreds of people pressed up against the fence, in danger of getting immolated if the fire jumped. My friend was watching from her balcony, ready to evacuate with her pets, when she saw the firefighting plane fly over and dump its load of seawater...on the people. They were all swept down the hillside, washed ass-over-teakettle away from the fire. There may have been casualties - the water rolled a car over - but although it's the talk of her neighborhood, nothing's been in the paper. We're wondering if the plane dropped the water on the people on purpose. Either way, everyone finds this extremely funny and laughs like a drain when they hear about it.
This same hillside burnt during the Olympics. The woman who organized the Olympics lives on the same hill, and had a party at her house, with fireworks, to celebrate the successful Games. One of the fireworks came down on the hill and set fire to it. The firetrucks arrived, but the gate in the chainlink fence had a padlock and chain on it, so the firemen proceeded no further, leaning on their trucks and smoking.
