A new legislative regulation providing urban planning stability for settlements with fewer than 2,000 residents was announced today during a meeting between Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis, Environment and Energy Minister Stavros Kaperdanos, and Deputy Minister Nikos Tagaras. The regulation, which will be submitted to Parliament today, effectively maintains existing boundaries in more than 9 out of 10 small settlements across Greece, safeguarding both property rights and regional demographic prospects.
The legislation introduces two new urban planning tools. The first, the ‘Settlement Development Zone,’ applies to communities with up to 700 residents — the vast majority of Greek settlements — ensuring the right to build up to current boundary limits. This secures urban planning status for nearly 93% of all settlements under 2,000 inhabitants nationwide.
The second tool, the ‘Area of Use Control,’ covers settlements with populations ranging from 701 to 2,000 residents and allows for more favorable building provisions compared to unregulated construction outside town plans.
It’s worth noting that in about 150 villages in Rethymno and Pelion, the Council of State previously annulled older boundaries established by decisions from local authorities. This led to construction stagnation and legal uncertainty regarding the demarcation of other settlements not officially defined by presidential decree. A subsequent presidential decree issued in April 2025 provided legal clarity on construction within settlements but left unresolved issues concerning peripheral zones until now.
Prime Minister Mitsotakis stated: “I commend the Ministry for its comprehensive initiatives in critical urban planning matters. We are advancing an ambitious plan where Greece will, for the first time, have special spatial frameworks covering the entire country. Within this major, often silent reform, we are now resolving the issue of settlement boundaries that has recently caused public concern and misinformation regarding the effects of the recent presidential decree. For all settlements under 700 residents — the overwhelming majority — existing boundaries will remain unchanged. For those between 700 and 2,000, we are introducing a flexible tool allowing construction in areas previously classified as Zone C, offering greater flexibility than current out-of-plan regulations. With these measures, we resolve a long-standing uncertainty affecting rural Greece, supporting our demographic policy and encouraging citizens to return to their villages.”
Minister Stavros Kaperdanos added: “This new regulation addresses the needs of over 2,000 settlements across Greece, responding to the challenges of rural revitalization and demographic decline. Following Council of State rulings in 2017 and 2019 that invalidated previous boundaries in 150 villages in Rethymno and Pelion, there was a halt in construction activity and widespread planning uncertainty. Today, we introduce two new urban planning instruments: one for settlements up to 700 residents, preserving current development limits through the Settlement Development Zone, and another for settlements between 701 and 2,000, introducing the Area of Use Control for more lenient development rules than those currently applied to out-of-plan construction. These changes eliminate regulatory ambiguity and reinforce the future of small settlements while respecting local identity and heritage, paving the way for a spatially secure, economically strong, and demographically optimistic Greece.