Greece’s top administrative court has rejected yet another legal challenge attempting to block a landmark privatization in the country, and specifically the iconic Helleniko land development project in coastal southeast Athens.
A decision throwing out a lawsuit by 10 individuals living in a handful of municipalities surrounding the Helleniko site, which in past decades hosted Athens’ airport and related state facilities, was made public on Thursday.
The 10 plaintiffs had requested that the Council of State (CoS) overturn a December 2016 culture ministry decision that did not designate certain structures at the old airport grounds as “modern monuments”. Two other institutional plaintiffs in the original lawsuit, namely, associations representing architects in the country, withdrew from the legal challenge.
The plaintiffs, part of a local citizens’ group vehemently opposed to any commercial development at the site, demanded that a terminal (west), a disused control tower and five 1930s-era buildings – which comprised the former American Girls College of Athens and today host Greece’s Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) – be declared as protected sites.
