Olbia, away the shepherds from the lands of Berlusconi of Costa Turchese- Corriere.it

OLBIA – Perhaps the last chapter of the story of Costa Turchese, the project that Silvio Berlusconi has cultivated for more than 40 years
to build a tourist mega-village south of Olbiawith one of the largest yacht harbors in the Mediterranean. The settlement was blocked by planning laws and, above all, by some families of shepherds who have grazed on the land for decades and who have claimed ownership for usucapione.

The last of the shepherds – reports Dagospia – has lost the civil judgment and all the land is now fully available to the companies headed by the Berlusconi family. Who can finally reactivate the planning / authorization process. Costa Turchese should be born on the coast between Capo Ceraso and Murta Maria, a hamlet south of Olbia, almost opposite the island of Tavolata.

Over the years, the mega-village has been downsized: from the initial 2 million cubic meters to just under 200,000; no marina: it should have been “dug” in a pond. Impossible, even for the revolt of environmentalists. And again the stop by Renato Soru, president of the Region at the time, with safeguard zones within two kilometers of the coast and a landscape plan that for years prevented the overbuilding of the coasts. Finally the shepherds. And this was precisely the side on which the Knight had to fight a legal battle with no holds barred, with victories, defeats and compromises. Indeed, it had happened that well before the lands – about 2,000 hectares – around Capo Ceraso were purchased by Edilizia Alta Italia and other real estate companies in Berlusconi’s galaxy, some shepherds had moved, more or less illegally, to Murta Maria, without the opposition from the old owners. Some have planted sheepfolds, built cottages. And they opposed their reasons to the new owner, who had meanwhile entered politics.

There were three resistant shepherds. Above all Paolo Murgia, who arrived from the province of Nuoro in the 60s, with his transhumant flock. Murgia claimed the property of 100 and subsequently, encouraged by a judicial sentence in his favor, even of a thousand hectares. And in order not to risk having a substantial part of the property taken away, the companies of the Berlusconi family chose the path of negotiation. Ill, a few months before his death – also convinced by a mediator to whom it would have been difficult to say no, Graziano Mesina – he accepted a transaction for a substantial sum, which remained confidential but finally revealed, apparently due to complex wills, with mathematical precision: 891,812 EUR. Much of the negotiation emerged from judicial papers: in that period Graziano Mesina was constantly intercepted, he drove a Porsche Cayenne stuffed with bugs, mysteriously set on fire to destroy compromising traces. The investigation ended with Mesina being arrested, sentenced to a severe sentence for international drug trafficking, and returned to life imprisonment.

After Murgia, two other shepherds have filed a lawsuit for usucapione. They demanded to acquire properties of about eighty hectares each, they insisted in various degrees of judgment, always resulting in their defeat. The lands were scattered like wildfire and would have made any tourist settlement difficult. The last definitive sentence in favor of the Berlusconi family’s real estate companies dates back to a few months ago, but it is not said that the projects can now proceed quickly: the urban planning side is stalled due to a conflict between the Sardinia Region and the governments that preceded the current before the Sardinian regional elections (February 2024) it is unlikely that a complex conflict, such as the ownership of powers in matters – which affects Costa Turchese and hundreds of other residential tourist projects – can be recomposed.

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