Ischia, what is article 25 and why are we talking about building amnesty – Corriere.it

An amnesty? A pardon? A building simplification? Giuseppe Conte, premier between 2018 and 2021, came under attack for having allowed the approval of an article in a decree of September 2018 now at the center of controversy after the tragedy of the landslide on the island of Ischia. It is a decree also signed by the M5S ministers Luigi Di Maio (Economic Development and Labour) and Danilo Toninelli (Infrastructure and Transport); it provided for more streamlined times and ways to settle accounts with the Municipalities in the event of irregularities. In practice, now, the accusation is that he then let his guard down in environmental matters, in fact favoring illegal activity and security risks in the area. A situation that also involves the responsibility of the mayors and which made Gilberto Pichetto Fratin, Minister of the Environment and Energy Security say: “In my opinion, it would be enough to put the mayor and all those who let construction go to jail”.

The latest news on the landslide in Ischia and on rescue operations

Article 25

That decree, known as the Genoa decree (dismissed after the collapse of the Morandi bridge) in the name of the reconstruction of environmental protection, in fact contained an article, number 25, entitled “Definition of amnesty procedures” dedicated precisely to Ischia. Conte now says: “It was not an amnesty at all, but an acceleration of the procedure for examining the files”. But not everyone sees it that way. According to Matteo Renzi “there is a limit to decency and he has exceeded it today, he is without shame, apologize”. For Carlo Calenda it was a “grave mistake”. For Alessia Morani of the Pd: «Have the good taste to remain silent».

What does the decree say?

The 2018 decree, in article 25, provided for a preferential lane for the examination of applications for regularization of houses damaged or destroyed by the earthquake of August 2017 (municipalities of Casamicciola Terme, Forio and Lacco Ameno with 13 thousand inhabitants). An extraordinary commissioner had to be appointed (the extraordinary commissioner for hydrogeological instability is the president of the Region); the “Safe Italy” mission unit was abolished and the “Casa Italia” project (to secure areas at seismic risk) launched with Renzo Piano was blocked. The applications were allegedly examined on the basis of the parameters of the amnesties of 1985, the Craxi-Nicolazzi one, and of 1994, the first of the Berlusconi government, even if the abuses had been carried out in a later period, provided that they were up to March 31, 2003, and a third pardon of September of that year. The first two amnesties concerned buildings built from scratch in areas subject to absolute non-building restrictions, while the 2003 law also blocked the amnesty for illegal houses built in areas subject to relative non-building restrictions. The amnesty of 2003 also imposed more stringent constraints for the volumes that could be forgiven.

The numbers

From 1985 to today, in fact, around 27,000 applications for building amnesty have been presented (60,000 are the inhabitants of Ischia, 90,000 rooms, 13,500 homes built without a permit), of which around 1,300, recalled the former M5S minister of the ‘Sergio Costa environment, those examined and on which a decision was made. Costa in 2018 had opposed the decree. In the municipalities of Casamicciola Terme (where there is no regulatory plan) and Lacco Ameno alone, with about 13,000 inhabitants, there are more than 6,000 files. For Legambiente, “the number of damaged buildings that have applied for amnesty after the 2018 decree is currently around 1000”. Overall, there are 8,530 applications for amnesty in Forio, 3,506 in Casamicciola, 1,910 in Lacco Ameno. There are thousands of demolition orders from the Municipalities, but none have been completed. About 10,000 criminal sentences by judges, 2% carried out.