Institutional portal - Municipality of Milan

Incentives and rules to make Milan increasingly sustainable through roofs and walls were discussed this morning at the conference promoted by Milano Clever cities. And in Milanese schools there are over 100 vegetable gardens

Milan, September 27 2019 – In Milan there are already 970.000 m13 of green roofs, which could become XNUMX million mXNUMX in the coming years thanks to the incentives promoted by the Government and the Administration and through the new rules of the Territorial Government Plan currently being approved.

This was discussed at the conference at the Fabbrica del Vapore "Nature solution in the city: in the courtyards, on the roofs and on the walls" promoted by Milano Clever cities, the project co-financed by European innovation funds (Horizon2020), in which Milan participates together in London and Hamburg thanks to the collaboration between the Municipality of Milan, AMAT, Ambiente Italia, Eliante, Fondazione Politecnico di Milano and Politecnico di Milano, RFI and Italferr and WWF Italia.

Through the European Decumanus project, the roofs of Milan were mapped between 2013 and 2016, revealing that, out of the total of 32 million square meters of roofs, approximately 970.000 square meters already have at least one part green. Examples include the vegetable gardens between the courtyards of Via Palermo 1 by the Piùarch studio, The mall in Piazza Bo Bardi, the roof of Superstudiopiù in Via Tortona, the roof of the new hostel in Ripa di Porta Ticinese. The project also analyzed the possibility of increasing green roofs, according to the geometric characteristics of the roofs, identifying a further 13 million square meters that could be landscaped with greenery.

“It is an ambitious and achievable objective for a city like Milan which is directing all its policies towards environmental sustainability and the increase of greenery – declares the councilor for Urban Planning Pierfrancesco Maran –. By 2030 we will have 3 million new trees in the metropolitan city, the birth of 20 new parks and the large metropolitan park and, thanks to the rules of the Territorial Government Plan which impose highly performing interventions from an energy point of view, we could manage to green up even over 10 million square meters of roofs. Each of these pieces contributes to giving a concrete response to the local and global climate emergency."

“Our interest – intervenes the councilor for social and housing policies Gabriele Rabaiotti – is to contribute to the development of an urban operation starting from the improvement of the open spaces and courtyards of our public housing, as well as from the energy efficiency of the buildings, with all the resulting benefits, from the reduction of pollution to the containment of expenses borne by tenants. On these issues the challenge is open and passes first of all through dialogue with the Government and the Lombardy Region in order to define paths that make the interventions actually achievable".

Roofs have many benefits: they retain rainwater and release it more slowly to the sewage system, thus helping to reduce the risk of flooding in the event of heavy rain; they reduce the summer temperature of the roof by up to 50° C and the heat peaks in the city by up to 2° C; guarantee significant savings in consumption and heating and air conditioning costs, up to 10%; they reduce air and noise pollution; improve the performance of photovoltaic panels; they increase the quality of the building, encouraging socialization.

Not just rules, but also incentives. Recently, thanks to the funds from the Clever cities project, the Administration has allocated 70 thousand euros for the construction of green roofs and walls as part of the "Be 2018" tender for the granting of financing for efficiency improvement works energy of private buildings. Further incentives are provided by the Green bonus promoted by the Gentiloni Government in 2018. The costs for creating a green roof range from a minimum of 50 euros per m200 for an extensive green roof (lawn) to a maximum of XNUMX for an intensive green roof (with plants).

During the conference, the other projects planned within Clever cities were also illustrated: in addition to the support of green roofs and walls also through dissemination and awareness actions, the implementation of green infrastructures and the creation of anti-noise barriers at the new Tibaldi railway station and the creation of a shared garden in via Giambellino 129 through naturalistic and innovative experiments. Just today the economic framework relating to the reclamation of the area for an amount of 3,5 million euros was approved by the Council.

A theme, that of the 'rediscovery' of shared greenery, of the value of soil, plants and agro-ecosystems in general, also carried forward in the discussion "Communities of practice: educational gardens in Milanese schools" (from 17 pm at the Riccardo Catella Foundation) attended by the councilor for Education Laura Galimberti and the deputy mayor with responsibility for Food policy Anna Scavuzzo, to talk about the socio-educational value that good urban horticulture practices have, even more so if carried out from an early age .

To date, Milan has 82 vegetable gardens in municipal nursery schools and nursery schools and 25 in state ones. Of those directly managed by the Municipality of Milan, 20 are "do-it-yourself", 26 are managed with the support of volunteer parents and grandparents and 36 with external, financial or management support from voluntary associations. The event, promoted as part of the actions of the Food policy of Milan and carried out together with the Departments of Education and Urban Planning and Green and the Municipality Directorate, in collaboration with the Catella Foundation, therefore aims to be an opportunity to enhance and share the knowledge developed by schools, associations and institutions, through consolidated experiences and innovative methods, and to discuss further possible developments with experts, teachers and families.