Luxury resorts, the Region of Sardinia: ‘Never authorised, a distorted account’

“This fuss is mainly the result of a distorted account of the facts, because no resort has ever been authorised, neither at Cala Finanza nor anywhere else in Porto San Paolo. The idea of a resort and villas is likely to remain merely a plan on the part of the investors.” Speaking on the matter is Giuseppe Meloni , Vice-President of the Sardinia Region and Councillor for Planning. The regional government official, who was previously also mayor of Loiri Porto San Paolo, was commenting on the project presented by the Italian-Brazilian company Tavolara Bay Srl.

“Specifically, a request was made to the ZES office in Rome to change the designated use of a historic villa into a restaurant and then an adjacent glamping site.” That is, experiential tents. “And because they have electricity and water, they count as structures and therefore cannot be installed within 300 metres of the sea.”

The initiative was subsequently blocked by the Department for the South within the Prime Minister’s Office, which ordered the revocation of the Single Authorisation issued in February, which had given the project the go-ahead. In particular, the project for five-star bungalows near Villa Joy – a historic residence built in the late 1960s, overlooking the island of Tavolara and recently purchased for ten million euros by a company belonging to the property holding group Jhsf – has been halted.

This setback came two days after the Loiri Porto San Paolo Town Council meeting, at which the council, acting under its own authority, revoked the November 2025 resolution that had reclassified the Cala Finanza area from Zone H to Zone F2, without allowing for any increase in building volume and with the requirement that over 50 per cent of the land be designated as a municipal public park. In recent days, there have also been a series of initiatives organised by environmentalists and activists.

“The council has simply revoked a policy resolution that was misrepresented by the project team,” emphasises the vice-president of the Region, “as it was also used to include the seven luxury mobile homes.” He then went on to comment further on a matter that also had political implications, involving attacks and criticism. “It was never a battle against anyone,” adds Meloni. “It was a battle to ensure compliance with the rules, Sardinia’s special autonomy, and the prerogatives recognised by the Constitution and our Statute.” As for the revocation of the authorisation, ‘it demonstrates that there were well-founded reasons to challenge that measure’.