Historical abuses
Beyond the general issues, the bill dedicates a focus to the simplification of the procedures for regularizing “historical” abuses, i.e. those carried out before the entry into force of Law 6 August 1967, n. 765. It was specified that the aim is not to modify the substantial requirements for the amnesty, but to intervene on the processes to make them more efficient. For this reason, there is also the possibility of making the release of these amnesty certificates subject to the implementation, by the owner or person entitled, of essential interventions to make the property safe or to adapt it to the mandatory technical construction standards.
Building code and urban regeneration
The new Construction Code, therefore, will not simply reform Presidential Decree 380/2001, but will replace it entirely and will be a broader text, which will also include other sectoral disciplines dating back over time, such as those relating to construction safety, in order to constitute a homogeneous body of rules.
The bill should then be considered as complementary to the provision on urban regeneration currently under discussion in the Senate. As underlined by Salvini, in fact, the new Building Code will dictate the basic rules on how to build, while the other will clarify which of these interventions will fall within the aims of urban regeneration, such as the incentives that can be recognized by local authorities and what the governance of the sector will be.
The responsibilities of the State and Regions are defined
As for the specific contents, the minister was keen to reiterate that the first pillar of the reform is to clarify once and for all the areas of state competence and those of regional competence, considering that territorial governance is a matter of concurrent legislation. A principle that is not present in the TEU, since the Text was written before the reform of Title V of the constitution which established, in fact, that the State is responsible for determining the fundamental principles, while the regions are responsible for detailed legislation.
The delegation therefore aims to overcome the current regulatory framework also with the introduction of the LEP, the essential levels of services, which are a mandatory state competence, which set a minimum standard of services and rights that must be guaranteed to all citizens uniformly throughout the entire national territory.
In fact, the delegation commits the Government on the one hand to identifying and specifying which rules are adopted in the exercise of exclusive state power, and on the other to expressly establishing which provisions constitute the fundamental principles of the concurrent matter. We will have to arrive at a clear and unambiguous delimitation of the borders, without the constant fear of litigation. Specifically, this must lead to the definition of unique criteria at a national level to identify construction discrepancies and abuses, thus reducing the differences at the local level which characterize the matter and are a constant reason for appeals to the TAR.
Intervention categories with measurable parameters
Once the general criteria and skills have been established, the sectoral interventions provide for the overall reorganization of the building intervention categories.
We will move from the current “literary” definitions of “extraordinary maintenance”, “restoration and conservative rehabilitation”, “building renovation”, to a new classification defined on the basis of specific guiding criteria. These are identified as:
- relevance of the intervention;
- nature;
- urban planning and building impact that that work generates on the territory.
The new classification will serve to clearly distinguish an intervention that simply transforms the existing building heritage from an intervention that involves permanent modification of undeveloped land, thus avoiding leaving room for interpretations and providing opportunities for litigation.
Once the categories have been defined, in fact, the Government will have to proceed with the precise identification of the associated qualifications: each intervention will therefore be associated with the relevant qualification in a certain way, without the need for interpretation efforts.
More space for silent consent
The delegation then provides for the reduction of obligations and documentary burdens, to guarantee greater certainty also in the times of completion of the works, taking into account the principle of proportionality. The burden of bureaucracy, the documents required and the waiting times in practice must be proportionate to the importance and impact of the intervention that is intended to be carried out.
For this reason, the text aims at more effective coordination between the various administrations involved (with explicit reference to the Superintendencies) to avoid crossed vetoes and lapses of responsibility, and reduce the deadlines for issuing measures. The cornerstone of this intervention will be the strengthening of the mechanisms of silent consent or devolutional silence to give temporal certainty to the interested parties.
