How is the relevance relationship identified?
According to the most recent praetorian guidance, the garage does not necessarily have to be located on the ground floor of the building of which the serviced housing unit is part, as long as it is located in the same municipality and within a reasonable radius of pedestrian accessibility from the main property, so that the relationship of appurtenance can be configured between the two properties.
In this sense, recently, the Council of State, section. II, in the sentence. 16 July 2026, n. 5778, established that “The art. 9, paragraph 1, of Law no. 122/1989, where it refers to the appurtenant car parks to be built on the ground floor of the buildings, does not require that these rooms be located in the same buildings where the individual real estate units are located, as, vice versa, in the first sentence of the aforementioned paragraph, it prescribes for the car parks to be built “underneath the same””.
Previously, the TAR Emilia-Romagna, Bologna, sec. II, in the sentence. 1 June 2022, n. 451, had specified that “this intervention, as it is carried out on the existing one and as it constitutes a change in the intended use of the premises from a warehouse to a garage, in any case complies with the regulations referred to in Law no. 122 of 1989 (so-called “Tognoli Law”), and, in particular, art. 9 of the Law which allows the creation of appurtenant garages also on the ground floor of buildings, and possibly also in derogation of the urban planning instruments and building regulations in force. In this case, the Board deems the appellant’s finding to be erroneous regarding the alleged non-existence of the aforementioned constraint of relevance between the other interested party’s premises intended for garage use and the main building for residential use, based on the fact that the two units are not part of the same real estate complex, but are located in two different and independent buildings located at a distance of approximately m from each other. 60. On this question, the respondent Region agreed with the observation that, pursuant to the provisions of Law no. 35 of 2012, which amended the art. 9…, the constraint of appurtenance of garages may also concern real estate units that are not part of the same building, provided that they are located in the same municipality and provided that there is a functional appurtenant relationship between them”).
The hermeneutic canons underlying jurisprudential thought
The reconstructive option reported can be shared in the same way as both the literal exegetical canon and the teleological and systematic criteria. As for the littera legisthe phrase “in the rooms located on the ground floor of the buildings” refers to the rooms on the ground floor of the building structures located near the residential unit, without imposing a “structural” connection between the two properties. Indeed, to guarantee the objective functional link between the home and the car park, required by law, physical proximity is necessary and sufficient, which ensures the use of the accessory building to serve the main asset. This is also confirmed by the different formulation used for the underground garages, for which the location in the underground spaces of the building is required. same building in which the apartment is located, or in the basement of appurtenant external areas (“Property owners can build underground”; “they can also be built, for the exclusive use of residents, underground in appurtenant areas outside the building”).
With reference to mens legisthe desire of the historic legislator was undoubtedly to encourage the creation of private parking spaces to be connected to existing homes, thanks to a highly favorable tax and urban planning regime. In fact, from the preparatory work of the law it emerges that the derogating rules pursue the objective of freeing public space on the surface from parked vehicles and decongesting historic centers through car parks serving residential properties, to remedy the situation of saturation of urban streets which occurred due to the exponential growth of the car fleet from the 1970s onwards(1).
Finally, the accepted reconstruction finds full systematic coherence in the art. 9, paragraph 5, of law no. 122/1989, as amended by law no. 35/2012, which, for garages built in private funds pursuant to paragraph 1, allows separate disposal from the apartment “with the simultaneous destination of the parking lot transferred to another real estate unit located in the same municipalityIn other words, as a result of the “shift” of the Tognoli constraint, it is possible to ensure a parking space for a house other than the one initially served, which, naturally, is located at a distance from the garage such as to allow the establishment of the appurtenance relationship: so it seems logical that a similar result can be achieved through the establishment from origin of the servitude bond between a residential unit and an artefact located in a building located nearby (and in the same municipality).
A recent concrete case: distance of 150 meters
In the same way as the hermeneutic coordinates outlined, in the sent. 14 September 2026, n. 1070, the TAR Liguria, sec. II, deemed the relationship of appurtenance to exist pursuant to the Tognoli Law in the case of a room on the ground floor (and, therefore, not underground) to be used as a garage/garage (following a change of intended use, as it is a building originally used as a warehouse), located at a distance of approximately 150 meters from the interested party’s apartment, accessible in three minutes on foot: therefore, the contiguity between the main asset and the accessory room was evident, with consequent configurability of the pertinent connection, further proven by the interested party’s commitment to sign a specific act of subservience of the garage to the residential unit.
Similarly, relevance was deemed to exist in the case of a distance of approximately 60 metres(2); on the contrary, the requirement was denied in the case of an underground garage to be built approximately 1,350 meters from the reference home, a distance evidently considered excessive(3).
Notes
(1) See, in this regard, the report of the meeting of 8 February 1989 of the eighth commission “Environment, Territory and Public Works” of the Chamber of Deputies, published on the relevant institutional website.
(2) TAR Emilia-Romagna, Bologna, sec. II, sentence. 1 June 2022, n. 451.
(3) TAR Campania, Naples, sec. II, sentence. 18 February 2019, n. 908: according to the judges, in fact, “the concept of urban relevance, relevant for the purposes of the application of the aforementioned national and regional legislation, cannot be extended to the point of totally excluding the need for the car park to be located at a distance from the main unit such as to allow in any case the establishment of an actual and not just theoretical service relationship between the car park and the main asset; in other words, this means that a car park located almost a kilometer and a half from the house to which it should belong cannot reasonably be configured as a place for the exclusive service of that real estate unit, and this regardless of the presence in this case of a formal deed of obligation, for the simple reason that it is located at such a distance that it cannot be covered comfortably on foot by an average citizen”.
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