Abusive development in Italy: only 15% of illegal structures demolished between 2004 and 2022.

From 2004 to December 2022, in the most vulnerable regions - Calabria, Campania, Lazio, Puglia and Sicily - 15.3% of the 70,751 illegal buildings for which demolition was set by decision of the 485 communes that fully responded to the Legambiente civil monitoring study were demolished. This represents 24.5% of the total sample.

The data comes from Legambiente's "Demolition Abuse 2023" report. According to the report, only 15.3% of the illegal homes in the "at-risk" regions considered were demolished between 2004 and December 2022. Including partial responses, the total number of orders issued was 83,430, about one order for every 310 citizens.

The report also highlighted the significant number of illegal constructions in''manufactured construction projects.

As far as the trend toward increased attention to environmental issues is concerned, construction demolitions are still not happening often enough. Legambiente proposes a number of measures to the government in response to the findings of the 'Demolition Abuse 2023' report.

As explained by Legambiente, "the legislation was passed by Parliament to counter the lack of demolition of illegal buildings by the communes, despite three amnesties, the last one in 2003, with the obligation of payment by the State. A few months after the law came into force,'''it is necessary to provide for the stopping of demolitions only after a suspension order issued by the court, otherwise there is no reason to block procedures''.

Legambiente proposes closing situations not authorized by amnesty. Legambiente proposes the creation of a serviced fund with an allocation of 100 million euros for each year from 2024 to 2026. Another of Legambiente's proposals is to make the Revenue Agency aware of information on unregistered buildings, obtained from aerial surveys and inspections in accordance with Decree 78/2010, to the Ministry of Environment and Energy Security, the Ministry of Infrastructure, communes and prefects to verify compliance with building regulations and not only tax regulations.