Garda Urbanization Concerns Spark Environmental and Political Debate
Famiglia Cristiana turns its attention to Garda. The Catholic weekly newspaper with more than five million readers dedicates three pages to Italy’s largest lake to condemn the excessive urbanization of the area.
“Especially in the Riviera degli Olivi, the building volume has doubled in twenty years,” writes Paolo Perazzolo, voicing the claims of Michele Bertucco from Legambiente. “Almost all second homes, as in San Zeno di Montagna: the vacant houses account for 76 percent. This not only leads to the loss of green areas but also transforms the centers around Garda into ghost towns for nine months of the year.”
Environmental issues and sewer project
The usual negative example of the sewer collector is not missing. “Construction began in ’76 with an estimated cost of 26 billion lire,” recalls Bertucco. “To date, 300 billion lire have been spent, and the collector needs to be rebuilt because it was poorly constructed, has numerous leaks, and features five dispersers that end up in the deepest parts of the lake.”
But that’s not all. “In Costermano, residents collected signatures to hold a referendum on a zero-growth master plan,” recalls Gian Paolo Bastia, president of the committee that gathered 420 signatures out of 2,100 voters. The referendum, as desired by Bastia and the minority councilors of ‘Il Mulino,’ will not take place on October 7, coinciding with the national consultation on Federalism.”
Authorities’ positions and the current situation
“Not certainly due to the opposition of the local government,” clarifies Mayor Giorgio Castellazzi. “Article 37 of our statute, approved back in the early ’90s, prohibits a municipal referendum coinciding with other voting operations.”
“On Friday, the city council appointed the commission that has one month to assess the validity of the collected signatures,” he continues. “The process will proceed until the referendum is scheduled, presumably in April,” Castellazzi explains, adding, “I believe that Costermano has been less built-up or at most as much as nearby municipalities.”
He also reminds us that the referendum proposal by the committee requests a ban on new expansions, although none are planned. Essentially, it’s like closing the barn door after the cows have already escaped.”
