Salva casa, new ceiling for non-conformities. Lazio expands the boundaries of amnesties

More space for the sanatoria of the Salva casa. This is the spirit of the intervention that the Lazio Region is preparing to approve. Tomorrow morning, the bill called 'Semplificicazioni e misure incentivanti il Governo del Territorio' (Simplifications and incentive measures for the government of the territory), in the version dismissed by the Urban Planning Commission, will land in the regional council. It is a text that contains many corrections to the regulations on territorial government, but which also has several passages of great importance precisely for the application of decree no. 69/2024.

To understand the importance of intervention, one must start with the definition of partial deviations. These are, in fact, constructive interventions (larger rooms, verandas, balconies) carried out in a manner different from that envisaged and authorised in the municipality, which fall between the limit of tolerances (which until now was 2% of the declared measurements, but which is raised up to 5% by the Salva casa, depending on the size of the property) and that of essential variations, which are indicated, instead, by the regional regulations.

Essential variations, in short, have a ceiling that varies from Region to Region: it has been repeatedly pointed out that this discontinuity at territorial level has been one of the main problems for the application of the Salva casa (Save house) law. One of the central institutes of that rule, in fact, concerns precisely partial non-conformity: it is the new certamento di conformità, in which 'old-style' double conformity is no longer required, but asymmetrical double conformity is sufficient (to the rules of the time of submission of the application for the urban planning part and to those of the time of realisation of the intervention for the building part).

Lazio was the region with the lowest threshold for essential variations: it was set at 2 per cent. This meant that there was no difference between tolerances and partial deviations. And that, on the contrary, the new higher limit for tolerances at 5 per cent had even exceeded the constraints set locally. Now the region is taking action, as has long been demanded by several parties, to reshape this limit.

The ceiling, in fact, is raised from the old 2 per cent. The new law states that an increase "exceeding 15 per cent of the volume or of the total gross area of the building" constitutes an essential variation. Up to the limit of 15 per cent one remains within the concept of partial non-conformity, which can be remedied thanks to the Salva casa institute.