Case studies
This classification can respond to broader public interest purposes, such as:
- the protection of the territorial structure, the containment of urban expansion, the protection of landscape and environmental values; maintaining a balanced relationship between built-up areas and free spaces(3), also for environmental protection purposes(4);
- avoid residential and productive settlements, constituting “the lung of the urban settlement” and taking on a decongestant function(5);
- also pursue the aim of environmental mitigation(6);
- pursue the needs of orderly territorial governance, linked to the need to prevent further construction, or to guarantee the balance of liveability conditions, ensuring the share of naturalistic and environmental values necessary to preserve this balance(7);
- protect environmental compensation and the conservation of undeveloped land(8);
- limit the consumption of free land(9).
Jurisprudence regarding urban planning choices
According to a consolidated and peaceful jurisprudential orientation, urban planning choices constitute the expression of a broad discretion of the Administration and can be questioned in terms of legitimacy only if they are invalidated by obvious elements of illogicality, irrationality, arbitrariness or by a manifest error in the factual assumptions (10).
As stated by the Council of State, “the urban design manifested by a general planning instrument, or its variant, represents the expression of planning power characterized by broad discretion which depicts, in addition to choices strictly relating to the building organization of the territory, also broader choices which refer to the comprehensive framework of possible options inherent to socio-economic development”(11).
The choice made during the general planning to imprint a particular urban destination on an area does not require particular motivation, as it is justified in the general technical-discretionary criteria followed in the formulation of the plan, unless particular situations have created expectations or assignments in favor of subjects whose positions appear worthy of specific considerations (12).
The administrative judge’s review cannot therefore go as far as substituting its own assessments for those of the entity, invading the sphere of administrative merit, but must limit itself to an extrinsic control on the legitimacy of the choice.
Notes
(1) TAR Campania, Naples, sec. VII, sentence. 7 April 2025, n. 2872; TAR Lombardia, Brescia, section. I, heard. 13 March 2026, n. 366.
(2) Council of State, sec. II, sentence. 14 April 2020, n. 2378.
(3) TAR Lombardy, Milan, sec. IV, sent,. 19 February 2024, n. 423; section II, sentence. 3 February 2026, n. 496; TAR Campania, Naples, section. II, sentence. 4 March 2025, n. 1771; TAR Tuscany, section. II, sentence. 10 February 2023, n. 138.
(4) TAR Lombardy, Brescia, sec. I, heard. 13 March 2026, n. 366.
See also TAR Lombardia, Milan, section. II, sentence. 17 April 2019 n. 868, according to which “The most recent jurisprudential evolution has, moreover, highlighted that within urban planning there must also be space for environmental and ecological protection needs, among which the need to avoid further construction and to maintain a balanced relationship between built areas and free spaces stands out (so, Consiglio di Stato, IV, 21 December 2012, n. 6656). And this is because urban planning and the correlative exercise of the planning power cannot be understood, on a juridical level, only as a coordination of the building potential connected to property rights, thus offering a completely minimal vision of it, but must be reconstructed as an intervention of the exponential Bodies on their territory, according to the overall and harmonious development of the same, for which the exercise of territorial planning powers can well take into account the needs linked to the protection of constitutionally primary interests, among which those contemplated are included. from the art. 9 of the Constitution (see Council of State, IV, 10 May 2012, n. 2710; also, 22 February 2017, n. 821; 13 October 2015, n. 4716; TAR Lombardia, Milan, II, 22 January 2019, n. 122; 18 June 2018, n. 1534)”.
(5) Council of State, sec. II, sentence. 31 July 2023, n. 7407.
(6) TAR Lombardy, Milan, sec. IV, sentence. March 25, 2021, n. 787.
(7) TAR Lombardy, Brescia, sec. IV, sentence. 27 May 2025, n. 1861. On the occasion it was stated that it is not an obstacle to this destination “the fact that the area is located adjacent to areas of the urbanized fabric (…) does not have a significant landscape sensitivity and is not included in a sector subject to specific environmental protection, since even in the cases of only partially urbanized areas, exposed to the risk of compromising urban and environmental values, in which planning can still achieve the effect of preventing or compensating for both potential and ongoing building disorder, the expected reduction in land consumption (with related protection of the draining surface and reduction of anthropic pressure) prevents the “completion” of an already partially built area and preserves its structure, thus avoiding the saturation of the territory and preventing possible damage related to this (see Council of State, III, 7 May 2024, n. 4085; IV, 20 July 2016, n. 3293; IV, 21 December 2012, n. 6656; TAR Lombardia, Milan, IV, 4 November 2024, n. 3010; II, 4 April 2019, n.”.
(8) TAR Lombardy, Milan, sec. II, sentence. November 23, 2023, n. 2769.
(9) TAR Lombardy, Milan, sec. IV, sentence. 20 November 2024, n. 3263.
(10) Council of State, sec. IV, sentence. 6 April 2020, n. 2284; sent. 31 December 2019, n. 8917; sent. 12 May 2016, n. 1907; section VI, sentence. 21 July 2023, n. 7152.
(11) Council of State, sec. IV, sentence. 17 July 2024, n. 6427.
(12) See, ex pluribus, Council of State, sec. VI, sentence. 17 February 2012, n. 854; section II, sentence. 6 October 2020, n. 5917.
