The Hellinikon Project… Good idea?
Beware of shiny new toys.
The Olympics of 2004 was a huge milestone for the city of Athens and the entire country of Greece. Tons of planning, money, blood, sweat and tears were put into creating tons of infrastructure and beautifying the city. As a part of these renovations, a new airport was set to be built 25 kilometers outside the city on an agricultural plain.
This airport, coined “Eleftherios Venizelos” after the Prime Minister of Greece, opened in 2001, five months ahead of schedule (which surprised me — the Greeks don’t necessarily have a thing for punctuality). This state-of-the-art airport is the busiest in Greece and has much longer runways than the previous airport, “Hellinikon,” which is only around 2 kilometers from the center of Athens.
So what happened to the Hellinikon site, you may ask?
For the Olympics, a few stadiums, including the canoeing stadium, were built sporadically around the site. These buildings and stadiums were built right on the runways with little upgrades to the existing sites. Most structures today are dilapidated and abandoned. The original airport structures are also still standing. During the 2016 immigration crisis in Greece, these buildings were used to house immigrants. They have since been vacated.
Recently, Lamda Development purchased the site in coordination with the Greek government. They called it “The Hellinikon Project,” and are planning to build a model city within this site. This includes room for residential housing, commercial development, parks, schools, movie theaters and hotels. Lamda Development wants to make it a self-sufficient area within the limits of Athens, almost completely separated from the rest of the city.
Now that all the background information is set up, I can talk about the pros and cons of this project, and how it will truly affect the “livability” of the city.
It sounds amazing, right? A beautiful, new, shiny area right in the middle of Athens. A beautiful place for people to live, work and play. It will inevitably upgrade the city and make it a tourist destination for people around the world.
What about the citizens, though?
Most of the residential housing set to be built on the site will be upscale, making it increasingly difficult for residents to afford to live there. Not only this, the development will undoubtedly gentrify the surrounding areas, causing rents to go up and people to leave their homes. The commercial development will create jobs and stimulate the economy, but does this help with Athens’ liveability? It seems to be moving in the opposite direction, if you ask me.
The Hellinikon Project seems like it’s going to be a playground for rich tourists who will pull up their yacht to the marina, get picked up in a Rolls-Royce only to be driven two minutes down a freshly paved roadway to a shiny high-rise. This is not feasible for the people of Greece. A separate (possibly gated) city within Athens will only work to separate the space into even more nodules than it already is. The people need a space that is for all, that can create jobs, and lower housing costs.
Maybe Lamda Development can prove me wrong. Construction hasn’t even really started yet; maybe there will be a different outcome. I’ll keep my fingers crossed, and in the meantime, keep reflecting on the idea of livability with this “city” being placed in the middle of Athens.
