Tolerated Informality and Formalisation

In Athens, housing transformations often occupy a grey area in terms of legality. Vertical extensions, rooftop modifications, and balcony enclosures are widespread, with authorities frequently tolerating or retroactively legalising them. This study examines how tolerated informality became a financialized, taxable resource that generated revenue for the state, while continuing to shape urban landscapes and produce both resilience and inequality amid rapid gentrification.

In this scenario, the public sector is either unable or unwilling to control specific phenomena, leading to the de facto tolerance of formally ‚illegitimate‘ developments (Durst & Wegmann, 2017; Chiodelli et al., 2021). These formats are tolerated to a degree that ‚one might hesitate to call them illegal‘ (Petrovic, 2005), as seen in the example of the construction of an unauthorised floor in Italian cities, which falls under very severe legislation but is rarely sanctioned (Chiodelli et al., 2021). These types of processes are facilitated both in a self-help manner and within formally established architectural practices. Many developments emerge through the use of legal ambiguities or are based on a social contract leading to the acceptance of specific forms of developments.

These are common in Southern European contexts (Chiodelli et al., 2021) and include incremental housing approaches, such as semi-illegal construction modes in Athens (Alexandri, 2018). The city‘s development is commonly described through several phenomena capturing this dynamic. Post-Second World War development was driven by the growth of informal settlements (Mantouvalou et al., 1995) and the system of Antiparochi - where housing production was negotiated across small construction companies, landowners, and the public sector, leading to the replacement of old buildings with more densely built-up districts (Alexandri, 2018). While laws are being formulated and systematically updated to regulate illegitimate developments, the state is, selective in enforcing its regulatory function. For instance, it often engages in post-factum licensing of otherwise informal/unregularised construction, commonly referred to as ‘afthaireto’ (αυθαίρετος) (encompassing various forms of extensions, particularly enclosures of balconies and rooftop modifications in an urban context). Furthermore, the phenomenon of constructing outside legal provisions, either by breaching or exceeding their prescriptions or exploiting loopholes, exists (named as: Paranomos - παράνομος). It may involve, for instance, structural conversions or illegal changes of uses.

The Athens case study will concentrate on such socio-spatial processes and trace spatial and usage transformations of housing and their reverse impact on policies. It will consider phenomena significant in scale and evaluate the role of social and legal norms within the local housing market. In particular, the issues of incremental vertical extensions and externalisations of various housing functions to rooftop spaces in Athens, as well as the conversion of uses of buildings in the context of the public sector‘s tolerance towards ‚spontaneous‘ forms of development, will be considered. It will encompass lived experiences of tenants, owners, as well as public administration and architectural firms among others. At the same time, the study will reflect on divergent transformation trajectories of building transformations, in terms of their spatial and morphological functions, including residential, environmental (energy generation, greenery, water resources), and recreational functions on the redeveloped rooftop spaces.

This study is realised in the context of radical gentrification threatening the city (Alexandri, 2018). It will reflect on the issues related to vertical residential segregation (Maloutas & Spyrellis, 2015), the influence the possibility of informal extensions has on the high valuation of rooftop flats, as well as the rise of platform economies focusing on housing, including short-term rentals and micro-living (Balampanidis et al., 2021). Scoping of neighbourhoods characterised by different income levels as a starting point that includes Chalandri (mid to high-income) and Nikaia/ Keratsini (mid to low-income).