Cyprus does not lack land. It lacks the effective use of land and the data collected by Ask Wire makes this clear. In the Acropolis area of Nicosia, only 53% of the permitted building coefficient — the ratio of allowed floor area to plot size — is actually being used. The remainder is permitted, but not built. In practical terms, this translates into more than 1 million square metres of unused buildable floor area, enough to deliver approximately 10,000 additional apartments in a single central urban area.
A parallel analysis of the Papas area in Limassol points in the same direction. Across just these two urban cores in Nicosia and Limassol, more than 18,000 additional residential units could be created if existing planning capacity were fully utilised.
This is not a…