Venice: the market for private islands continues – Crevan is up for sale

Not all projects are comparable: Crevan is already privately owned and is being proposed as a residence, not as a future resort. However, its arrival on the market inevitably draws attention back to what has happened elsewhere, where former public, healthcare or religious buildings have been restored through private investment and, in several cases, converted into luxury accommodation.

This has happened, amongst other places, in San Clemente, where the former convent – which later became a hospital – has been converted into a luxury hotel, and in Sacca Sessola, the artificial island that once housed a large respiratory hospital and is now home to the JW Marriott Venice Resort.

Sacca Sessola itself offers one of the most emblematic examples of the tension between commercial development and local identity. The island has been promoted to tourists as the ‘Isola delle Rose’: in 2017, a campaign by local residents and organisations protested against the replacement of the historic place name on Google Maps, and succeeded in having it restored. This may appear to be a purely nominal dispute, but it is indicative of the widespread fear in parts of the city that tourism-driven development could alter not only the accessibility but also the identity of the lagoon islands.

The most emblematic case, however, remains Poveglia. When, in 2014, the State Property Office attempted to award the island under an extremely long-term concession, a group of Venetians launched a campaign to keep it in public ownership.

The battle lasted more than ten years. In 2025, the State Property Agency finally granted the ‘Poveglia per tutti’ association a six-year lease on the northern part of the island, where there are plans to create an urban lagoon park open to the public and dedicated to the protection of biodiversity.

The matter, however, is not yet settled. The State Property Agency itself has made it clear that, for the restoration and future management of the whole of Poveglia, it aims to involve both public and private bodies through development and partnership projects.

It is here that one of the central issues in the Venetian debate comes to the fore: on the one hand, there are islands with abandoned historic buildings, the restoration of which requires substantial investment; on the other, there is the fear that the solution will systematically result in high-end accommodation facilities and spaces being taken away from the everyday use of local residents.

The issue resurfaced in the summer of 2026 at Ca’ Roman, on the southern tip of Pellestrina. Here, a property development project envisages 77 holiday homes on the site of a former seaside holiday camp, close to the nature reserve managed by Lipu.

Citizens and environmental organisations have rallied against the project, and an online petition has gathered over 40,000 signatures. The Venice branch of the WWF has expressed serious concern about the potential impact on the oasis’s ecosystem.

The developers, however, reject the accusation of speculation. According to Ca’ Roman srl, the project would involve an investment of around 40 million euros, and the new buildings would, overall, have a volume slightly smaller than that of the derelict buildings of the former settlement that would be demolished. Over the years, the project has undergone a lengthy administrative and legal process and has been amended compared with previous versions.

This controversy highlights just how difficult it is to reduce the issue to a simple dichotomy between conservation and development. The issue also concerns **what kind of development** is compatible with a fragile environment such as the lagoon, and what balance should be struck between economic interests, heritage restoration, environmental protection and public access.