‘Planning regulations need to be reviewed to facilitate the launch of the Housing Plan’
An analysis by Davide Albertini Petroni, president of Assoimmobiliare. “Credit is due for the launch of a well-structured programme, but corrective measures are needed”
‘It’s a challenge, because with yields on some government bonds at 4 per cent, we need to guarantee investors a return of over 6 per cent. To do this, we will need to reduce risks, speed up procedures and optimise production capacity to cut construction costs, but also introduce further regulatory measures to enable these investments to go ahead.” Davide Albertini Petroni, president of Confindustria Assoimmobiliare, has repeatedly welcomed the Housing Plan as the launch of a genuine industrial policy for the sector. However, to give the private sector more breathing space, some corrective measures are necessary.
Let’s start with the positives.
The Plan deserves a great deal of credit. It tackles, through a structured programme, a challenge that is not only social but also industrial, because workers’ homes means improving the country’s productive capacity. Furthermore, attention is finally being paid to that ‘grey area’ of households that had been left in limbo. Furthermore, the aim is to enhance public assets through the housing cohesion fund. And the groundwork is being laid to undertake large-scale projects of genuineurban regeneration, not only for residential housing but also for other uses.
What, then, were the restrictions that needed to be removed?
The one-billion limit for investments eligible for simplified town planning and administrative procedures has been retained. We, on the other hand, had called for the one billion to be invested across multiple projects within at least the same geographical area. The problem is that in Italia there are very few individual projects worth one billion. This reduces the pool of potential projects.
