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European Cooperation in the field of Scientific and Technical Research - COST Action C11 |
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Spatial Planning in Italy National
data on planning systems Spatial
Planning in Italy Maurizio
Meriggi "GREEN
STRUCTURES" IN ITALIAN PLANNING - LAWS, POLICIES,
CHALLENGES Oct
01 1. Italian
system of environmental planning 2. Policies for
environmental planning, some examples 3.
Challenges 1.
Italian system of environmental
planning The Italian
system of environmental planning is based
substantially on: cataloguing of areas subject to
environmental limitations, identified by the
Regions (through Regional Territorial Landscape
Plans); management and design of green areas at a
local municipal level (through Master Plans and
various forms of Detail Plans). The use of
instruments of coordination between landscape
planning on a regional scale and planning on a
municipal scale is now in the preparatory phase
through the Territorial Coordination
Plans. Main
environmental protection laws -
cataloguing "Testo unico
delle disposizioni legislative in materia di beni
culturali e ambientali" (Unified text of
legislative stipulations regarding cultural and
environmental assets) (L.490/99) The
environmental protection standards in Italy are
found today in a law that was passed in 1999, which
groups the contents of legislative measures enacted
since the 1920s, but clearly defined by: - two laws from
the end of the 1930s, "Tutela delle cose di
interesse artistico e storico" (Safeguarding of
things of artistic and historical interest) (L.
1089 of 1939) and "Protezione delle bellezze
naturali" (Protection of natural beauties) (L.
1497 of 1939), which were based on listings made by
the Provinces of assets or territories to be
protected, submitted to the Ministry of National
Education; - the updating
in the 1980s of the law from '39, with L. 431
(known as the Galasso Act, due to the name of its
writer), which extends the categories of assets and
places to which to apply protection
regulations[1], leading to an increase in
the land area covered by legal protection from the
amount stipulated in L.1497/39, or 17.42%, to
46.81% of the national territory (for a total of
141,000 km2 out of the national total of 301,263
km2), while above all delegating to the Regions (19
in number, instituted in 1974) "the administrative
functions exercised by the central and peripheral
organs of the State for the protection of natural
beauties, in terms of their identification,
protection and relative
sanctions". Parks and
"Legge quadro sulle aree protette" (Framework law
on protected areas) (L. 394, 1991) The formation
of protected natural areas in Italy dates back to
the early 1920s, with the institution of a series
of National Parks - 5 until 1968. With the creation
of the Regions, since 1974 a large number of
Regional Nature Parks has been formed &endash; over
100 until today &endash; to which another 16 new
National parks were added in the 1990s.
As a whole the
area of the National Parks, Regional Nature Parks
and Regional Protected Areas amounts to over 10% of
the national territory. The national
law "Legge quadro sulle aree protette", dated 1991,
protects locations classified as National Parks,
Regional Nature Parks, Nature Reserves (in keeping
with definitions and aims similar to those
identified by international agreements). The Law
stipulates that these areas should have Plans,
which have the "effect of a declaration of general
public interest and urgency, and of impossibility
of postponing the interventions specified,
replacing at all levels landscape, territorial or
urban plans or any other planning
instrument". Therefore the
Plans have effect both inside and outside the
edified centers. Moreover, the
law provides for incentives for municipalities and
provinces that are part of national or regional
parks, assigning "priority in the concession of
financing for the realization of the following
interventions: restoration of historical centers or
of edifices of particular historical and cultural
value; recycling of rural settlement nuclei; works
of sanitation and drinking water; works of
conservation and environmental restoration of the
territory, including agricultural and forestry
activities; cultural activities in the fields of
interest of the park; agricultural tourism;
compatible sporting activities; structures of
energy sources with low environmental
impact". Master
Plan (Piano Regolatore Generale, PRG) -
management In Italy all
the municipalities, no matter what their size, must
prepare a Master Plan in which the green areas are
defined in the form of urban planning standards
(computed as percentages with respect to the number
of inhabitants and the land areas of the zones
covered by the plans); nevertheless, the Italian
legal system does not call for a technically
autonomous Urban Greenery Plan that would define
the system of urban greenery, specifying typologies
and functions. The Master Plans of the
municipalities that lie inside protected areas,
however, must by law obey the indications of the
Plans of the parks. The regional
urban planning laws &endash; with slight variations
from region to region on the subject of green areas
&endash; stipulate the minimum quantities of public
greenery in keeping with the following
quantities: - for
residential settlements, 26.5 sq m. per inhabitant
for public facilities or places of public interest
in which at least 50% of the area is green, or
facilities for play or sports, which can
effectively be utilized as such; to this end it is
possible to count the areas inserted in regional
and super-municipal parks; green belts along
streets, on the other hand, are excluded from the
computation. - for new
industrial settlements at least 10% of the entire
area, for public spaces or collective activities,
public greenery and parking; - for new
commercial or office settlements at least 75-100 sq
m for every 100 sq m (in keeping with the zoning
definition) of new edification, of which at least
half is set aside for parking, and the rest for
other functions, including greenery; - in the
municipalities that host inter-municipal
facilities, in relation to the population of the
territory served, added spaces for public
facilities of general interest are called for, to
the extent of 17.5 sq m/inhab. for development, of
which at least 10 sq m/inhab. must be utilized for
urban and territorial public parks. In cities of
interest for tourism regional laws have imposed the
addition of 5 sq m/inhab. of greenery for every
seasonal visitor. Territorial
Plans - coordination Both the
environmental protection law of 1939 and the urban
planning law of 1942 called for forms of
territorial planning capable of including in a
single instrument sizeable parts and consistent
units of the green system. Planning
experiments were conducted in this sense, with the
development of territorial landscape plans or
inter-municipal plans, but it was not until the
Galasso Act that regions were obliged to develop a
Regional Territorial Landscape Plan. The Italian
Regions have taken over a decade to complete this
instrument, and the first results have only begun
to be visible over the last few years.
Nevertheless, this instrument is limited to general
recommendations developed on the basis of surveys
made on a scale of 1:25000, without
implementational purposes of protection, which are
still left up to the Master Plans of the individual
municipalities (prepared on the scale of
1:5000-1:2000) and the Detail Plans (on a scale of
1:500-200). At present
Territorial Coordination Plans are being prepared,
with landscape content on a Provincial scale.
However, due to the lack of this type of instrument
certain parts of the Italian territory have been
planned with instruments on a territorial scale
through the Plans of the Parks, which constitute,
thanks to the National Law on Protected Areas
(1991) and the regional laws (since 1974), true
instruments of territorial planning. As we have
already seen, the Park Plans
(prepared on a scale of 1:25000) have the effect of
a declaration of general public interest and
urgency, and of the impossibility of postponing the
interventions specified, replacing at all levels
landscape, territorial or urban plans or any other
planning instrument. [1] The
categories covered by environmental protection in
L. 490/99 (previously identified in the law of
1985) are: a) coastal
territories in a strip with a width of 300 m from
the waterline, including higher ground above the
sea; b) territories
around lakes in a strip with a width of 300 m from
the waterline, including higher ground above the
lakes; c) rivers,
streams and waterways contained in the lists
utilized by the unified text of the legislative
measures on bodies of water and electrical plants,
(...), and the relative banks for a width of 150 m
on each side; d) mountains in
the part exceeding 1600 m above sea level for the
Alpine chain and 1200 m above sea level for the
Apennine chain and the islands; e) glaciers and
glacial cirques; f) national or
regional parks and reserves, as well as protected
territories outside of the parks; g) territories
covered with forests or woods, even if damaged by
fire, and those for which reforestation has been
stipulated; h) areas
assigned to agricultural universities and zones set
aside for civic uses; i) wet
zones; l)
volcanoes; m) zones of
archaeological interest. All rights
reserved - © COSTC11, 2001 To add your own definitions or ideas just email Anne Beer. |
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