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Industrial Risk in Thessaloniki and Urban Regeneration Context
1  http://www.linkedin.com/pub/christina-matika/60/3/410

Published: 31 October 2013 by MDPI in The 3rd World Sustainability Forum session Sustainable Urban Development
Abstract: The venture of Industrial Risk concerns life, natural – built environment and socio-economic activities. The aim of the research is to identify the threat, its awareness and to ensure the protection of residents. Activities that can lead to a Major Accident (MA), installation process of new units – establishments and responsibilities of investors and the state, are indicated in European Directives, called SEVESO. Employers have responsibility for safety within the industrial establishment; the state is responsible for the perimeter. So governments are responsible for the methods determining the Protection Zones (PZ), the expected impacts of a MA per zone and the Major Accident Prevention Policy (MAPP). In Greece these arrangements are not a result of institutionally entrenched methodological choices. For the first time, new SEVESO installations are related to Land Use Planning in the Directive SEVESO II of 1996, without referring to the existing proximity of corresponding activities to the urban fabric.Western Thessaloniki is the territory in danger and especially the Urban Units (UU) 4 and 5 of Elefterio Kordelio. It is established the fact that the parameter of industrial risk is absent from the urban planning of the area. The urban paradox of residents ’ coexistence to the risk (threat) is probably caused by the diachronic vicinity of urban tissue with industries, without any relative preoccupation, despite occasional incidents. There is not a fauve impact just because of ignorance and lack of information, despite any clear provision from Directives SEVESO. The parameter of industrial risk is completely absent from the urban planning of that region. The correlation of existing protection zones with urban areas, where anticipated impacts in case of major accident, shows a series of conclusions concerning terms and conditions of coexistence.SEVESO installations are obliged to reduce effectively the width of PZ I and II (best practices, closing down, relocation), habitants of UU 5 must be removed directly (changing accommodation, relocation) and finally a plan of Urban Regeneration must be applied in UU 4 in order to temporarily remove urban activities (utilities), disperse land uses, enforce building shells and reuse them, create open spaces, form evacuation plans, create digital info – systems (Information and Communication Technologies ICT), etc. The measures of the above framework will remain active, until the reduction of protection zone II, so that the urban unit 4 will not be covered.
Keywords: Industrial Risk, SEVESO Major Accident, Impact Fauve, Socio-economic Damage, Urban Regeneration.
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