Assoimmobiliare: 'By 2027, 20,000 new student houses'

"By 2027, our associates plan to build 20,000 new housing units for students in Milan, Rome, Padua, Florence, Pavia, Turin and Bologna, in addition to the 20,000 already built in recent years," announced Davide Albertini Petroni, president of Confindustria Assoimmobiliare, at the event "Una casa per studiare, una generazione per crescere", organised in Milan by Confindustria Assoimmobiliare, during which the results of the Association's Observatory on student residences and the association's proposals for developing the sector were presented.

The figures confirm that student housing is one of the most dynamic sectors of the Italian residential market, as well as being one of the most popular with investors and real estate operators. Driving the development of the sector is a steadily growing demand and a supply that is still structurally insufficient compared to the real needs of the university population.

In Italy, in fact, there are almost 700,000 off-campus students, equal to over 40% of those enrolled in university courses. However, the beds available cover just 5% of the overall need, one of the lowest percentages in Europe: in Germany they stand at 13%, in France at 16% and in the United Kingdom they reach 30%. And real estate operators are "ready to invest," explained Petroni, "but it is essential to make the regulatory and fiscal context in which they operate more stable and consistent: too often, in fact, operators are held back by territorial inequalities and the rigidity of legislation. It is urgent to work, together with the institutions, to enhance the potential of private capital, so as to guarantee students and their families affordable, quality housing solutions, equipped with services to foster the creation of communities with opportunities for meeting and interrelationships among students.

"The undeniable social value of student housing, on the other hand, requires specific attention on the part of the institutions and real estate operators: a social pact is needed to foster the development of the sector in the long term, so as to concretely support the right to study, improve the competitiveness of our universities and enhance the value of Italian university cities as poles of attraction for students, talent and international investment".

At the event, Confindustria Assoimmobiliare presented a package of four proposals, including 'the introduction of unified and simplified fast-track authorisation procedures for the construction of student halls of residence with a "single procedure", with certain deadlines for obtaining permits, and the recognition of student housing as an independent urban planning function distinct from ordinary residential and tourist accommodation', as well as 'the extension and stabilisation of the Pnrr regime, so as to make the measures provided for therein permanent and structural for all student halls of residence, including: a change of use always permitted towards university residences; exemption from the construction of parking spaces and the creation of additional standards; the possibility of obtaining simplified permits with certainty of the time required for their issue and volume increases for the renovation of existing buildings'. It is also important to proceed with a 'further reform of law 338/2