Home plan, effectiveness limited by the billion foreign capital requirement

Excessive centralisation, regulatory uncertainty and overly selective access to bonuses and simplifications risk weakening the Housing Plan approved by the government to expand the supply of housing at sustainable rents. The most critical point is reserving the major exemptions only for integrated housing infrastructure programmes recognised as being of pre-eminent national strategic interest, i.e. for interventions supported by foreign capital to the tune of at least one billion euros.

The plan stems from the rehabilitation of public housing, financed with 970 million euro from the MIT, disbursed through Invitalia to local authorities.

The first critical issue concerns direction: the recovery of public assets depends on local urban planning, building and administrative constraints, which are difficult to govern by a national centre. A regional, metropolitan or provincial commissioner figure would be more consistent with the exercise of derogatory powers, which in the hands of a national commissioner risk being of dubious hold. The Housing Cohesion Fund, set up through Invimit Sgr to invest in local funds promoted or participated by territorial authorities, remains interesting, but its effectiveness will depend on the regulation, particularly on adhesion, investments, timing and controls.

The real crux is the third pillar. Infrastructural programmes for integrated housing allow private intervention, with priority given to no land consumption, free housing and at least 70% social units at a rent or price 33% lower than the market. Only programmes supported by foreign capital for at least one billion gain access to the most incisive simplifications: extraordinary commissioner, derogation from local plans and regulations, exclusion of subsidised building from the gross floor area, no implementation plan, no obligation for urban standards and private parking. The billion threshold drastically restricts the number of interventions that can be subsidised and excludes programmes of a significant but smaller size, even if they are capable of affecting housing deprivation. Even more problematic is the condition of foreign capital: access to facilitation should depend on housing impact, urban quality and implementation capacity, not on the origin of resources.

To make the measure effective, it is necessary to rebalance the 70/30 ratio, to extend bonuses and simplifications also to programmes not financed by foreign capital or below the billion threshold, to limit the termination effects of the lease in the event of an increase in the tenant's income, and to clarify that programmes may include more than one intervention, even in different municipalities that have already begun. Without appropriate corrections, the Plan runs the risk of not fully exploiting the opportunities offered by smaller-scale private initiatives that are nonetheless useful for expanding the sustainable housing supply.