CAPACCIO PAESTUM – Submit a request to build a parking lot a few steps from the archaeological area but the Superintendency gives a negative opinion. The Tar of Salerno confirms the denial and rejects the appeal. In 2013, the Municipality of Capaccio Paestum and the regional directorate for Cultural and Landscape Heritage of Campania signed a memorandum of understanding for the redevelopment and enhancement of the Archaeological Park of Paestum. The agreement provided, among other things, for the rearrangement of the viability and accessibility to the archaeological site to be implemented with the creation of parking areas outside the perimeter of the walls.
In this context, the co-owner of an area located at the Porta Aura, at the north entrance of the walls of the ancient city of Paestum, in July 2020 filed an application for the release of the authorization to build a parking lot, on a land of 28,000 square meters, falling for 7,500 meters in the G4 area (car parks, in fact) of the master plan. The project obtains the favorable opinion of the local landscape commission, but the Archaeological Superintendence of Fine Arts and Landscape of Salerno and Avellino expresses the opposite opinion, believing that “the area subject to intervention (…) is located a short distance from the walls” and the project «interrupts the unity of that historical agricultural landscape which represents an element of landscape qualification of the ancient city». Furthermore, continues the Superintendency, this alteration will be aggravated by the presence of motor vehicles and in particular buses, which would constitute “an element of considerable disturbance for the views of the walls”. At that point, the applicant filed an appeal with the TAR of Salerno.
The Municipality of Capaccio Paestum, the Superintendence and the competent Ministry are established. The judges (president Nicola Durante) confirm the motivation of the Superintendency, the result not of a pure discretionary choice, but of a technical-discretionary evaluation; on the other hand, they reject what was expressed by the applicant who, in support of her request, referring to the memorandum of understanding eight years ago between the Ministry and the Municipality, indicated the relocation of vehicular traffic from the Archaeological Park as a priority. The appeal was rejected and the court fees were offset by the parties. The area close to the temples has always been “protected” by designs that can somehow alternate their unsurpassed beauty. And although the parking does not constitute a construction, the presence of vehicles, especially buses, could somehow spoil the vision. A choice that the owners of the land near the archaeological area will not agree with, but the history and culture are more important than all the rest. And in this case, in addition to the Superintendency, the judges also established it.
Andrea Passaro