Land Planning Through Public Private Partnerships In Greece

The participation of the private sector in land planning is regarded as fundamental in the field of land development in Europe since the early 1960s. It is seen as offering benefits for both government and citizens. It forms part of the land development policy, aiming at expanding government agency capacity in land planning programs and at achieving a successful and cost-effective outcome. This form of partnership has undoubtedly negative aspects as well; still, it has the potential of becoming an important tool for promoting land development. Greece is lacking behind concerning the adoption of public ñ private partnerships for land planning projects, since the capacity of the collaboration between the public and the private sector in planning is still not fully appreciated. As yet, few public ñ private partnerships for development projects are undertaken, because of the inability of the authorities to apply the existing legal framework. The aim of this paper is to focus on the Greek institutional framework for the participation in land planning and to evaluate some of the projects carried out in Greece. This study expects to draw conclusions concerning the implementation of collaborative planning in Greece, to pinpoint the strong and weak points of the institutional framework and to examine how effectively these schemes actually achieve their goals.