Greek islands Skeleton

[sailaboutvic]

I not sure why the Greeks seem to want to litter their lovely islands with non finish building or should say concrete skeletons .
Island after islands there these just started building , some are large hotel , up close you can see there been there for some year , the concrete eaten away by the weather .
We in Koundouros on Kea and there a few dozens dotted about , even an hotel as you enter the bay .
The photo below is of an Hotel on Agina
I Can only imagine the Greeks have so much black money to lose .
I understand that if a building isn't completed tax isn't due as in many houses only the ground floor is finish ,
But this is something very odd .

 

[LittleSister]

I thought incomplete buildings were a Greek favourite going back ages. You never see a complete building in any of the old paintings and drawings of the place.

I'd heard the tax explanation too, but that doesn't explain why they start when they can't or don't want to finish. I assume it's something like get a building permit when you can, then get foot in the door by starting, and leave finishing until you've got the money/need.

 

[Yngmar]

These are a common sight in Portugal too, where the reason was the financial crisis ending a lot of optimistic building projects abruptly.

In Spain the famous Hotel Ilegal and similar building skeletons are the result of cleaning up corruption and thus building permissions that were falsely granted being revoked mid project.

My favorite solution to this problem was in Lanzarote, where illegally built high-rise hotels (the island has strict regulations on number of floors and other things) were simply bulldozed from the top down until the number of floors was down to the approved limit! Of course this mostly ruined the builders and/or left the building useless for its original purpose.

 

[jordanbasset]

Agree with the above, Greece has always had smaller buildings with the top floor not completed, but many of the big ones we currently see were started prior to the collapse of 2008. Following the collapse the money dried up and we are left with the results

 

[Yngmar]

Albufeira had a particularly large one, with the weathered site sign still standing. It reads "Casas da Marina - A Dream come true". It was clearly abandoned very suddenly, the scaffolds still stand, there are pallets of brick deliveries stacked at the site entrance (surprisingly untouched) and walls were half-finished as the builders dropped the brick they were holding and walked away. The building sections are in various stages of completion, ranging from empty skeleton to walls, windows and paint. It's fenced in and the only residents are cats and seagulls.

 

[AndrewB]

In 2018 I've noticed a number of large buildings that have been shells for many years which are at last showing signs of construction underway again. Particularly in the Ionian. The problem surely relates back to 2008 when the development boom crashed taking many developers with it, and property lost value for the seven years following.

This is a bit different from the old Greek habit of not finishing off a private house in order to defer taxes - that, I believe, is no longer permitted.

 

[One A.]

With the Greek ones some don't meet earthquake standard, and they can't afford to rectify them.