SANTORINI – One of the world’s most popular islands – Santorini – already buckling under the weight of too many tourists – is being taken over by development in a rush to cash in on the numbers of visitors that keeps growing.

Just like Mykonos – where Greece’s underworld is said to be controlling rampant construction – Santorini is seeing its land mass being filled with more units for tourists while workers complain they can’t find affordable apartments.

“The surface of the island covered with buildings reaches 20 percent, which is higher than that of Attica,” the prefecture including Athens, Santorini Mayor Nikos Zorzos told Kathimerini about the problem.

He said that’s demanding that, “Not a single new hotel bed, not a single new short-term rental bed be allowed on the island” while construction outside town zoning “must be stopped completely.”

He asked for improvements to the infrastructure that can’t handle the hordes that are so many on the cliffside at the port that people literally can’t move without bumping into someone else.

He said that building development is taking place at an “exponential rate and in an irrational manner,” as the New Democracy government is pushing for more resorts while saying it wants to deal with overtourism that’s threatening some islands.

He complained that tourism businesses that are important to the island – which cried out for tourists to come in 2020 when the COVID-19 pandemic struck – are being undermined by runaway development that’s not being controlled.

He didn’t say how much authority he had or what the government could do to put limits on development as it promised while simultaneously seeking more luxury resorts, many taking over public beaches.

The island has a year round population of 15,840 people but gets two million tourists a year, most in the summer and most jammed into the world renowned cliffside area that overlooks a dormant volcano and known for sunset spots.
Every day there are more than 500 large buses, 4,000 minibuses and vans, 10,000 daily visitors and hundreds of quad bikes packing the overrun road network, especially the narrow streets of Oia, Fira and other villages.

Local authorities are limited in what they can do, the law allowing a 35 cents charge for cruise ship visitors and the government so far unable to rein in the growing number of people who come to the island.