The Municipality of Athens has beefed up its budget to provide subsidies for property owners who want to clean up and restore building facades.
Another €1 million ($AUD1.5 million) has been added to the €1.7 million ($AUD2.6 million) originally allocated to the project, Athens officials said, adding that they had approved 371 applications out of 403 so far. Subsidies for these have reached €1.8 million, which means there is €900,000 ($AUD1.3 million) left for other projects to be submitted. Larger subsidies are provided to owners of listed buildings. The owners will have to remove individual TV antennas, as well as commercial signage. An official said the city is looking for additional funds.
Over the last five years there has been a concerted move to remove tagging and graffiti from Athens’ buildings and statues. At the same time there has been a great increase of street art from local an international artists. Athens has a range of street art tours in places such as the inner city suburb of Psiri.
