The project to tear down and rebuild the houses in via Bonola was approved but not funded. The same happened for another 551 urban regeneration plans, for 93% of the cases belonging to Northern regions: in fact, a criterion was used in the evaluation, the social and material vulnerability index of Istat, which gives a score major city in the South, “stopping” the rest of Italy en bloc. The protest of the mayors was immediate, also through the Anci: «There are no suburbs of Serie A and B – comments the mayor of Novara, Alessandro Canelli -. The degradation must be healed everywhere ».
The Novara project consists of two parts: one concerns the demolition of the white buildings in the area of via Bonola, via Pianca and via della Riotta and their reconstruction with eco-compatible criteria, cycle paths and spaces for events, another focuses on renovation of Cascina Cascinetta with its transformation into social housing, urban gardens and headquarters for social services. The first lot has a total value of 12.1 million euros, the second of 7.9 million euros. It is a maxi-intervention destined to change the face of a substantial portion of Sant’Agabio and concerns 128 families, who during the demolition and reconstruction works would be transferred to other social housing in the city, according to agreements already made by the Municipality with Atc. The buildings are in fact owned by the Municipality that built them (badly) in the 1980s but are managed by the territorial agency for the house, the former Iacp.
It was not a “lucky” complex, that of the white houses, because from the beginning the inhabitants complained of problems such as infiltrations and humidity, then the lack of maintenance and neglect did the rest, making a general renovation difficult and preferable instead. killing.
The evaluation of the projects by the Ministry of Economy and Interior Ministry took a long time and in the end the urban redevelopment program of Sant’Agabio was approved but without resources, as also happened for the projects of Vercelli, Treviso, Bergamo, Milan , to cite a few examples. But it is not just a problem of money and this is the reason that has sparked the protests of the mayors of the excluded municipalities. “In evaluating the plans, Istat’s social and material vulnerability index was used, based on factors such as literacy, education level, per capita income and the percentage of unemployment and youth inactivity which essentially” penalizes ”The richest cities on the whole. In this way, however, disparities are created between suburbs that all need to be healed and relaunched “underlines Canelli, also as delegate to the local Finance of Anci Nazionale together with the president of the association of municipalities of Piedmont and mayor of Vercelli, Andrea Corsaro . The challenge to the evaluation formula, which also comes from the Anci del Veneto, is that in this way the cities of the South, to which 40% of the resources of these European funds are reserved, would get more than 80% of the resources. The excluded municipalities then opened a dialogue with the government, which is committed to finding other funds: “We mayors are in a position to start the works immediately and to complete them within the deadlines set by the European Union, but 800-900 million euros are needed. – Canelli concludes -. It is above all a question of respect and fairness “. –