Without Salva Milano sting on building sites: housing at risk for almost 40,000 people

Over 39,000 people, just under 15,000 families and 420 construction sites involved, between authorised and yet to be authorised projects.

These are the up-to-date estimates of the harsh consequences that Milan's urban planning crisis is having in the Lombard capital. They were drawn up by the 'Famiglie sospese, vite in attesa' (Suspended Families, Waiting Lives) Committee, which met with the president of the Lombardy Region, Attilio Fontana, accompanied by the councillor for Land and Green Systems, Gianluca Comazzi.

The numbers follow and clarify the estimates made in the first days, thanks to the joint work with a number of real estate promotion and development companies. And they return a dramatic situation. The projects already authorised with at least one of the problems contested by the Public Prosecutor's Office number 250, those to be authorised number 170. They correspond to more than 20 thousand flats which, in many cases, have already been sold and for which substantial advance payments have been made. Ninety-three per cent of the projects already authorised have at least a signed preliminary with down payments. Waiting for these properties are almost 14,500 families and about 39,000 people.

'It is a number that we unfortunately expected,' commented Filippo Borsellino, spokesman for the Committee, 'because we have been collecting data, testimonies, contracts and stories for months. And the size of this drama is clear the number of flats alone that are now officially 'blocked' (and therefore of affected households) amounts to precisely 1,625, but estimates made with builders and property developers on the buildings resulting from the investigated press articles bring this number to a total of 4.167 families already involved, while if one considers all the buildings with at least one of the problems contested by the Judicial Authority one arrives at the enormous number of 14,481 families suspended (because they were unable to have the house they thought they had bought) for a total of over 39,000 people involved. It is a Kafkaesque situation that can no longer be ignored'.

President Fontana, flanked by Councillor Comazzi, expressed full support for the families, reiterating the need to identify as soon as possible a legislative, administrative and technical path to unblock a matter that affects not only individual rights, but also citizens' trust in institutions.