Ccl: ‘Five projects on hold in Milan. Over 400 homes in limbo’

“In December 2024,” explains Mirko, 33, “we started looking for our first home and decided to join the Cooperativa Unitaria Certosa housing scheme, which was due to start in the summer of 2025. Today, a year on, we still haven’t received any answers. This uncertainty isn’t just holding up a building project: it’s holding people’s life choices in suspense. We find ourselves in limbo, not knowing when or if this project will finally get off the ground.”

When Claudia – aged 42, a beneficiary of the Via Taggia housing scheme – joined the project in 2020, her son was two years old. He is now eight, and in the meantime the family has grown with the arrival of a second child. For over six years she has been waiting to find out the fate of her home: ‘Today, after more than six years, we still don’t know when work can begin. In the meantime, our family has grown, new needs have arisen, and we continue to live in a state of uncertainty. It is serious, inconceivable, that there is no clear explanation, despite the project being fully compliant. This silence exacerbates the problems faced by the families involved, which are already significant.”

There are 440 CCL housing units in Milan – comprising social housing, private housing and homes intended for affordable rent – which are still awaiting the necessary planning permission. Five cooperative initiatives are currently on hold. Sixteen months have passed since the last meeting with members, and there is still no clear timeline for their future. This standstill directly affects hundreds of families, businesses and workers, and represents one of the main concerns expressed by members of the cooperatives affiliated with CCL – the Consorzio Cooperative Lavoratori – who met last night in an extraordinary assembly to take stock of the situation and discuss possible actions to be taken in the coming weeks.
The cause is the ‘paralysis’ of the municipal offices, following the major judicial inquiry into town planning (many property projects are alleged to have been authorised via SCIA, normally used for renovations, rather than via the mandatory implementation plans required for new builds), which, after three years of deadlock, is still holding up property development projects at the starting line, plunging families and businesses into crisis.

During the debate, it was reiterated that, in recent years, the cooperatives have continued to work with the relevant authorities, providing all the additional information requested and, where necessary, adapting their projects even at the cost of significant additional investment borne by Ccl. Despite this, the administrative process continues to face considerable difficulties.

“This is not merely a delay,” emphasised Alessandro Maggioni, Chairman of Ccl, “but a deadlock that is having a tangible impact on hundreds of members awaiting a home, on the cooperatives themselves, and on the people who work there. For the first time, after 50 years of operation, CCL’s business continuity is in question. Not because of strategic errors or risky decisions, but for reasons unknown to us, which are hindering the issue of building permits to which we are entitled. It is up to the political authorities to heed our appeal and create the conditions for clear answers and definite timelines.”