Commentary
The ‘Save Milan’ bill will only save real estate developers, and spread across Italy
This appalling bill, which at one time would have had all of Democratic and progressive Italy up in arms, passed with the votes of the main opposition party, because it was coming to the rescue of a center-left city administration.
The so-called “Save Milan” bill, approved a few days ago by a bipartisan majority – the center-right government alliance together with the PD – in the Chamber of Deputies, threatens to deal a death blow to Italian cities, but also to the principles of the Italian Constitution. Let’s look at the three major issues with this bill. It comes after months of the Milanese judiciary pursuing investigations into numerous construction projects that had been approved on the basis of fanciful and unreasonable interpretations of the law.
The Chamber of Deputies chose to tackle this matter head-on by taking the side of the landowners and builders, with an amnesty that will cover outrageous cases (eight-story buildings on land where only four-meter-high warehouses were approved, to give one example) as long as they involved an “authentic interpretation” of the urban planning law and the Consolidated Building Code. Thus, the legislature has intervened explicitly in order to nullify the ongoing investigations into the legality of the projects.
This appalling bill, which at one time would have had all of Democratic and progressive Italy up in arms, passed with the votes of the main opposition party, because it was coming to the rescue of a center-left city administration which, in continuity with the previous right-wing administrations, has sold out the city to real estate developers. Those who have stood in opposition deserve our thanks: local committees, urban planners such as Sergio Brenna, and the Rifondazione and “Milano in Comune” lists that ran in the elections as an alternative, denouncing this drift.
The legal onslaught against the investigations of the Milan judiciary was unleashed on the basis of claims that distort the truth to the point of negating it altogether. All the right-wing newspapers (Libero, Il Giornale and La Verità) ran a common campaign with the message that because of these investigations, Milan's real estate values were in danger of plummeting and €40 billion in private investment would be lost.
The first of these notions is completely false. The analyses of real estate values that have come out in recent days confirm that Milan property values have reached dizzying levels, the highest in Italy.
The center-left administrations that have led the city for more than a decade have achieved only one result: they have rewarded real estate rents and at the same time expelled the poorest part of the city to the hinterland. The second part of the right-wing claim intentionally hides, behind the smokescreen of the €40 billion in danger of “disappearing,” the fact that the Milanese builders of these controversial projects still owe the municipality of Milan at least €1 billion in unpaid urbanization taxes. And while the €40 billion will surely end up invested after all, the unpaid urbanization taxes will have to wait for court rulings, which may not come at all if this amnesty bill is also approved in the Senate.
That money is needed for social services, schools and parks. The sloppy Milanese urban planning practices ignore Articles 3 and 41 of the Constitution. Mayor Sala has acted as a Robin Hood in reverse, and the Chamber of Deputies has sanctioned this theft from the community in law.
Then, the “Save Milan” bill also erases legal certainty: it allows new buildings to be demolished and rebuilt even as they alter existing boundaries and heights. This is a very dangerous legislative intervention, because in cities the rights of neighboring owners to have light, views and overlooks are carefully codified. This issue is all too familiar to citizens of Milan who did nothing wrong, but still have eight-story concrete hulks spring up right next to them, taking away their view and fresh air.
The existing legislation on the subject, which was clearly of a neoliberal bent from the start, required that interventions that alter a building’s characteristics must be subject to the preparation of a detailed urban plan. This was intended to safeguard the aforementioned rights, because the procedure is public. Councilors, local committees and individual citizens are all notified of the plan, and the law allows them to submit comments or appeal before the administrative courts.
That will no longer be possible with the new bill. The “activists” for letting the concrete flow – once again, the right wing plus PD – want to allow such interventions based on a simple notification sent to the municipal offices. In this way, only the owner and the municipal engineer will be informed about the terrible consequences everyone else will have to bear.
The “Milan model,” subject to numerous criminal investigations, is about to become the new urban planning model that will be exported to every Italian city. This disgrace must be stopped.
Originally published at https://ilmanifesto.it/salva-milano-modello-mostro-da-esportazione on 2024-12-05