Institutional portal - Municipality of Milan

Tancredi: "The objective is the recovery of what already exists, and this is the best result that can be achieved within the regional legislative framework, which however still limits the municipalities' right to decide." Volumetric bonuses at 10%, the resolution must pass by the City Council by the end of the year

Milan, 10 December 2021 – A new discipline for the recovery and return to the city of the "empty spaces" of Milan, the buildings that have been decommissioned and abandoned for years. With a proposed resolution just approved by the Council, which will then have to be examined by the City Council, the Administration has developed the relevant provisions, with a view to urban regeneration that minimizes land consumption and enhances landscape protection and protect all large green areas. The new rules were decided in application of the art. 40 bis of Regional Law 12/2005 which frames and regulates the topic, after the rules already defined by the Government Plan for the territory of Milan which did not provide for any incentives or volumetric bonus.

A first package of 115 properties and abandoned building complexes was therefore identified, among the 65 already listed with the PGT and another 50 resulting from documented reports: for these buildings the relative ownership will have two years (the minimum allowed by the regional law) to present the recovery projects, in the absence of which a process will be triggered which will require them to be demolished and, if foreseen, to the loss of the volumetric bonuses. These are properties which, for at least one year after the entry into force of the Regional Law (June 2020), have been abandoned and cause critical issues for safety, public safety and health - for example due to the presence of asbestos or other dangerous chemical agents - or discomfort for urban decorum and quality.

For these types of properties, art. 40 bis of the regional law in force provides for the possibility of building recovery with an increase in building rights which can vary between 10 and 25% and which, in the absence of a precise municipal determination, is expected by default at 20%. The same law also allows a further 5% bonus for urban regeneration interventions that ensure a green surface area no less than the increase in built-up area, or that lead to a reduction in the land footprint of at least 10%.

Now, the municipal resolution sets the maximum volumetric increase ceiling at 10%, therefore at the minimum allowed, so as not to further increase the settlement load of the municipal territory in an indiscriminate manner compared to what is established in the PGT. A series of territorial areas are also identified in which this possibility will not be granted, for reasons of particular landscape, environmental and architectural protection. The abandoned buildings in these areas, therefore, will have to be recovered with the existing volumes.

The ancient nuclei, the course of the Lambro river, the northern park, the southern agricultural park and all areas characterized by a recognizable urban design, such as all those designated as green areas to be safeguarded, must therefore be excluded from the application of the incentives; compact urban fabrics (in which construction took place in alignment with the road network, squares and public green spaces); the fabrics of the "garden city", characterized by low-density residential typologies, set in greenery; the former rural settlements now incorporated into the city; the neighborhoods that represent different ways of developing the city, such as the first popular neighborhoods or those of architectural interest dating back to the 50s and 60s, created to experiment with new building typologies.

Of the total of 115 abandoned properties already verified, there are 32 in areas excluded from the application of incentives, and 81 in areas that do provide them (2 will only have partial incentives).

In this last type of area, the interventions must be accompanied by an adequate provision of areas for public services and equipment, as well as by quotas of social residential buildings (subsidised, therefore at controlled prices, both for sale and for rent) for those involving a gross surface area exceeding 10.000 m². The Administration also reserves the right to increase the contribution in urbanization costs requested from the developers of the interventions, based on the quantification of the economic value produced by the transformation projects.

"This resolution – explains the councilor for urban regeneration Giancarlo Tancredi – represents the best result that can be achieved within the regional legislative framework, a framework which for us is worse than what was established previously: the volumetric premiums introduced by the regional law are in any case set at the minimum allowed, as well as the delivery times of the recovery projects, and we have also identified the areas, quite a few, totally excluded from this reward mechanism. All points that the Municipality managed to obtain thanks to the legal battle of the last few months , recently concluded with the ruling of the Council. In this way we remain faithful to our objectives of recovery of the existing and urban regeneration, we contain the urban planning load and ensure that it is accompanied by an adequate provision of areas for services of interest public and urban development charges, as well as the correct quotas of social residential housing".

The art. 40 bis was reformulated after the three ordinances of the TAR of the Lombardy Region last February which, in the context of three appeals presented by as many property owners against the Municipality relating to the rule on the recovery of abandoned buildings of the PGT, have in fact given the Administration was right when it raised the issue of the constitutional illegitimacy of Article 40 of Regional Law 12/2005 which allowed the owners of abandoned properties to obtain a building bonus of up to 25% and to build in derogation of the morphological regulations and the provisions of the PGT. Article 40 itself was then definitively rejected by the Constitutional Court with a ruling dated 6 October and filed on the 29th, and in its place art. 40 bis, which reduces the volumetric bonuses and leaves greater autonomy to the municipalities in planning the regeneration of their territory. 

All municipalities are obliged to implement it by December 31st, under penalty of automatic application of a 20% volumetric bonus.

Identification of abandoned building stock with critical issues - List of properties