Forest maps: The 8 SOS for the owners from the agronomist surveyor engineer Grammati Baklatsi 2024-03-13 22:21:30

The abstention of lawyers and the huge volume of objections submitted by the citizens results in the delay in adjudication of the cases, thus creating problems for the owners.

In order to unblock the process, the ministry will move on two axes. The first, as he explained to “ET” Mr. Stathopoulos refers to the circular that will be issued in the next few days “through which obvious errors will be separated from objections. In other words, obvious errors that are a large volume will be prioritized in the circular in order to finish as soon as possible. From then on, as long as the lawyers’ abstention in the rest of Greece continues, we will examine the data” he emphasizes, while pointing out that the problem of their abstinence is somewhat normalized as “for two weeks now there has been no issue in Attica, it is over, but there are associations of the province they continue”.

The second axis for the committees to “run” the objections has to do with the delay in payments – which for many is the reason why they are not examined. However, according to the general secretary, the cases are not heard due to the absence of lawyers since November. In relation to the procedural part of the payments, he pointed out that “from 1.1.2023 the payment for the meetings is made by the Green Fund which last Friday completed the tender that was running for the information system through which payments can be made in physical persons (s.s. it could not be done until now) and thus it is expected that there will be a contractor immediately so that payments can begin in 2^The half of the year and which will concern the payments of the committees of 2023″.

It should be noted that overall 334,938 objections had been submitted, which concern over 2.6 million acres, an area corresponding to 1.9% of the country. The most objections to forest maps were submitted in Attica (28,552), Chania (20,818), Ioannina (17,305), Laconia (15,478), followed by Larissa, Messinia and Aitoloakarnania.

Since the following period is considered critical for the consideration of objections, the agronomist surveyor engineer Secretary Baklatsigives useful instructions on what citizens need to know.

1. How are forest areas declassified after the approval of the forest map and does the claim by the Greek State cease?

We are a year and a half after the completion of the process of the Reformation of the Forest Maps of the country and their sanction with the issuance of a relevant decision of the Secretary General of Forests and the publication in the Government Gazette.

However, there are thousands of citizens who belatedly discover that their property appears to be forest property and is claimed by the Greek State. This usually happens during the process of posting the rights in the Land Registry and during the process of drawing up a contract.

In this case, the owners should not panic, because they have one more chance to correct the mistakes on the forest maps without paying a single euro, if they realized, even belatedly, that their parcels of land are wrongly shown as forest land on the sanctioned forest maps.

The procedure they must follow is not that of an objection, but of a request for the correction of an apparent error. Applications are submitted to the local Forestry Directorate, so that the service can proceed with their correction.

However, we should note that the request for correction does not concern the cases where it is clearly seen that the lands are forested or cleared or wooded fields, but that these are cases of error, inaccuracy and ambiguity of the forest map. In this case, the state recognizes that it is necessary to correct the errors, given that after the forest map is sanctioned, the citizens only have the right to take legal action.

So far, tens of thousands of owners are trapped, because while they have been vindicated by the Forest Departments, due to bureaucracy and understaffing of the services, the Forest Map has not changed and they cannot use their property.

2. What is planned for those who missed the deadline to object to the forest map?

It is allowed after the partial sanction of the forest map to reform it, by adding or deleting the areas that fall under it or cease to fall under it in accordance with the forest legislation or by court decisions ruling on these acts, by court decisions on the ownership issue of the areas that should either have been included in the forest map or were incorrectly recorded during its preparation and are not depicted in it. There is also the case of correcting the map due to obvious errors.

3. What applies to the ownership of the lands after the reformation?

For the areas of the forest map, which are added as A/A and were not subject to the forest law at the time of its ratification, no rights are claimed by the Greek State according to the provisions of the forest legislation.

Also, the Greek State does not promote or claim ownership rights in lands, which, according to the forest map, are governed by the provisions of the forestry legislation and concern polygons or strips, created by the application of the cadastral diagrams on the forest maps, of whose respective area does not exceed 100 sq.m. or they are within the shape compatibility zone of the land parcels, according to the technical specifications of the National Land Registry.

4. When is the reformation of the forest map done and how?

The legislation does not provide a specific time for the correction to be made. In theory, every time a correction request is examined and a correction is found, the relevant Directorate of Forests must send a relevant recommendation to the General Directorate of Forests and Forest Environment of the Ministry of Environment and Energy, which must also approve it and then ratify it with a decision of the General Secretary of Forests.

In practice, however, it is difficult to continuously issue decisions to reform the map, which is why the competent ministry considers that the cases should be collected and the map reformed on an annual basis.

5. Who is the correction request for?

It concerns exclusively the owners of land areas outside the city plan in the areas where the forest map was partially sanctioned.

6. Where can I get information?

The Certified Forest Map is available on the websites www. Ktimatologio.gr. and in the Forest Directorates. Also, if you don’t know the exact location of your field, you can contact a surveyor to locate your property and advise you if the property does appear as forest on the forest map and what needs to be done to correct it.

7. What supporting documents do I submit to correct the map due to an obvious error?

The interested party must submit the following:

-Relevant application to the Forestry Directorate

– The E9

– Photo ID

-Coordinates of the area in EGSA 87

-Documents of the Administration (e.g. concession, Deed of designation, engineer’s certificate for building before 1955, etc.)

8. What are the errors being corrected?

Errors are divided into the following categories:

– Errors due to cartographic backgrounds.

The accuracy of the map, which was created by combining two different images from 1945 and 2007, is generally checked, because during this time there were major changes in the landscape.

– Errors due to incorrect placement of thematic boundaries.

In other words, the line that separates a forest area from an estate was not correctly crossed. This occurs mainly at the edges of fields bordering woodland, where the bulk of the foliage is within private agricultural land.

– Errors due to omission or misrepresentation of thematic areas (concerning form or character).

For example, an arboretum or an old olive grove, which due to the strong slope of the ground during the photointerpretation of the aerial photographs, was interpreted as a forest.

– Errors due to omission or wrong data entries (matching).

E.g. it does not write inside the polygon what character the area has (W.D., A.D., D.A., A.N., D.X., etc.).

– Errors due to modified elements after image processing due to gradient areas.

By classified areas we mean the areas that for reasons of national security are shown processed on the map and this may have affected the surrounding area as well.

– Errors due to inclusion of low grassland, rocky or stony areas.

Areas located at an altitude of less than 100 meters with an average slope of less than 8% and a maximum slope of less than 12%, which have grassland vegetation or are rocky, are considered “plain” and which should be seen as “other form/ coverage’ (AA) on the forest map.

– Errors due to inclusion of grassland, rocky or stony areas identified as private.

This category includes allotments that were given by concessions to private individuals.

– Errors due to inclusion of artificial forest plantations as forest areas.

These are plantations (e.g. white oak groves, Christmas trees, forest plantations), which are created on private agricultural lands, for the purpose of logging, handling and marketing of forest products.

– Specific errors due to failure to display actions of the administration before sanctioning the forest map.

This category covers cases such as: the deed of characterization of the forest office was not passed correctly, or the boundary of the city plan, the boundaries of reclamation, etc.