Save Milan, the Municipality studies the solution

For the Municipality of Milan, hopes of receiving a solution from Rome to the burning issue of the alleged building abuses contested by the prosecutor's office are fading. Palazzo Marino's top management is therefore considering reworking the Pgt, the territorial government plan that for a five-year full stop represents the city's landmark urban development, whose guidelines were presented in October 2023. Mayor Giuseppe Sala said he wanted to wait, but also look at other solutions: "Now there is the intention to recover the amendment, let's see if it happens or not. What we are going to do at this point I think will be to take up and try to speed up the Territorial Government Plan to find a formula that will secure the interests of the city and those who build,' he added. We will, however, remain exposed to the risks of the past. Then we will evaluate how to manage them'.

All eyes are now on the next parliamentary appointment, the conversion of the Infrastructure Decree. The majority parties, especially the League, had promised to create an ad hoc regulation, at least to rectify the past, but having failed to do so due to a lack of agreement between the centre-right parties with the Salva-casa decree, they now say they want to try again with the Infrastrutture dl, precisely. An idea made explicit by the undersecretary to the presidency of the Council of Ministers, Alessandro Morelli, a few days ago, but already partly withdrawn by the Minister for Infrastructure, Matteo Salvini, who instead said he "does not know" how it will end, although he stressed that he had tried.
Attempts at an agreement will be made between the end of this and the beginning of next week. In the meantime, yesterday the government gave the go-ahead to an order of the day by Noi Moderati and Forza Italia, also signed by the League and Fdi, which commits the government to 'adopt regulatory initiatives aimed at resolving the problems' arising from the 'current condition of regulatory uncertainty' that 'makes urban planning and administrative measures vulnerable, in all the major Italian cities, first and foremost the city of Milan'.

The words coming from Roman politics for Milan sound, however, vague, so much so that Sala emphasises that 'we cannot wait forever. We are accelerating on the Pgt because it is clear that time is now very limited'. The city administration therefore plans to revise the territorial government plan, although it is still difficult to understand how, given that regulatory doubts remain. Over the past 10 years, Milan has chosen to build buildings over 25 metres using the 'Scia' model self-certification, a much simplified way compared to the longer and more complex Implementation Plan. A path that has encouraged investment, including by foreign real estate funds, now frozen due to regulatory uncertainty, given that the public prosecutor's office has launched numerous investigations claiming that renovations and constructions of this size must be carried out with Implementation Plans or Building Permits with an agreement between the public and private sectors. There are at least 150 projects at risk of being halted for many years, while by 2024 the loss of revenue from urbanisation charges is expected to reach 130 million for Palazzo Marino.
+Today the Pgt is in the phase of confrontation with the stakeholders. Then it had to go definitively to the junta and be approved by the city council. But times are getting longer in this case too, as important changes are being hypothesised that go in the direction of protecting against other possible investigations. As far as the past is concerned, however, without an interpretative rule or amnesty, all that remains is to wait for a judge's opinion.