- Municipality signs off on 3,000,000 euros green maintenance project.
- Tender covers 2026–2027, funded by municipal coffers.
- Work includes pruning, irrigation, replanting, and paving.
- Spaces include parks, schools, cemeteries, and Venetian Walls.
- Officials hail it as a “priority for citizens’ quality of life.”
A Tender Blooming with Bureaucracy
On Tuesday, September 9, Heraklion’s Municipal Committee gathered to unanimously approve what can only be described as the most expensive gardening bill in town: a three-million-euro open tender to keep the city’s greenery from looking too brown.
The plan runs from 2026 through 2027 and comes straight from the city’s own pocket. Targets include every corner of the municipality—from parks and roundabouts to the newly inherited Venetian Walls and coastal zone. In other words, if it grows, climbs, or wilts on municipal soil, it is now officially on the maintenance list.
Deputy Mayor for Cleaning, Environment, and Energy, Nikos Yalidakis, called it “an important and necessary tender,” stressing that it supports the efforts of the Greenery Department and its staff to maintain, embellish, and expand the city’s vegetation. Translation: two more years of pruning, planting, and trying to keep the bougainvillea from eating the bus stops.
In reading the news on Facebook, a citizen commented: “I know that in our neighborhood (Oasis), you can hardly walk on the sidewalks because they haven’t been cleaned in a long time. Plus the trash. Everything works perfectly in this city.”
And What’s in the Contract, You Ask?
According to the municipality, the works include:
- Regular pruning, irrigation, and replanting are necessary.
- Soil preparation and new plantings of trees, shrubs, and herbs (because Heraklion is nothing if not aromatic).
- Protection of existing plants from damage and disease (good luck with that).
- Hardscape fixes like removing and re-laying paving stones on sidewalks, squares, and medians.
And because no public tender is complete without stretching the definition of “green space,” the contract also covers schoolyards, municipal cemeteries, and every tree-lined street in the city’s sprawl. Somewhere between the cemetery roses and the playground swings, Heraklion’s €3 million promise of urban Eden will take shape.
But are these just empty promises? Citizens remain skeptical: “It’s a game played by the municipality that has been going on for years, unfortunately. There has been no change or improvement. They have condemned our city,” commented Maria Kypraki on the Facebook post.
Oversight of the works will fall, naturally, to the Directorate of Environment, Rural Development, and Commerce—specifically the Department of Greenery Studies and Maintenance. In short: a lot of clipboards, a lot of forms, and hopefully a few actual shovels.
“Don’t we have a Department of Green? What is its reason for existence, to hold competitions for private individuals?” Asked Vergetakis Giorgos on Facebook.
The Bigger Picture
City Hall insists the investment is about “quality of life.” And it is true: nobody wants to see a palm tree collapse in the wind, or a schoolyard turn into a dust bowl. But for Heraklion’s residents, the proof will be in the planting. Will three million euros really buy shade, cleaner air, and nicer playgrounds? Or will we end up with freshly paved sidewalks and a few saplings struggling against the Cretan sun? Let’s remember all the fuss around the Karavolas Park, which is now a ruin of its former glorious self.
For now, citizens can only wait—and maybe keep watering their own flowerpots. After all, municipal gardening moves at its own pace.
