Veneto Plans Race Track and Horse Racing Venue Near Lake Garda
A race track and a horse racing track on the edge of the lake! The news was announced yesterday morning in Bardolino by a regional councilor from Veneto, Mario Rossi, originally from Desenzano, appointed by President Giancarlo Galan to participate in the assembly of the Garda Community. “Villafranca, Trevenzuolo, and Vigasio have managed to secure the race track,” Rossi said. “The regional government’s resolution was passed the day before yesterday (Friday, editor’s note).” Several locations had expressed interest, including Montecchio in Vicenza, Cavarzere in the province of Venice, Bovolone, and Zevio, in Verona province.
A commission evaluated a long list of 22 requirements: proximity to major transportation routes, hotel capacity, population size, nearby hospitals, etc., assigning scores accordingly. The project will now undergo an Environmental Impact Assessment. “Then,” said the Sport Councilor Floriano Pra, “the groundwork will be laid for its realization in a few years, thanks to project financing.”
Many private investors with interests in the motor field seem interested in the idea. The regional government has tasked the financial agency “Veneto Sviluppo” with identifying the most suitable legal form to establish a public-private joint venture that will build and manage the race track. For this phase, an estimated expenditure of 3 billion lire is planned.
Regarding the horse racing track, with a racetrack and betting, the initiative is still in development. “Seventy Brescia-based industrialists are particularly interested,” Rossi stated. “The site should be located between Peschiera and Sommacampagna. We have already held meetings at the Verona APA’s headquarters with all stakeholders. The same Verona city administration, through lawyer Bottoli, chair of the city’s urban planning commission, has also expressed interest. The city owns a couple of agricultural plots that could be used for the horses.”
Meanwhile, Bottoli has become the regional Ombudsman. The Brescia entrepreneurs (Nocivelli, Gnutti, who owns a faucet manufacturing plant in Volta Mantovana, Bresciani of Uvr in Roè Volciano, which trades in feed, etc.) remain awaiting further developments.
If roses… Other topics discussed: the need to create a one-kilometer railway line from Peschiera to Gardaland to ease traffic on the roads, and the idea of opening rehabilitation centers (modeled on S.Corona in Fasano or the orthopedic hospital in Malcesine) linked to clinics in Austria and Germany.
Mauro Parolini, councilor of the Province of Brescia, after joking (“I see that in Veneto, autodromes and horse racing tracks are handled by the Regional Government, perhaps a bit too centralized”), recalled recent agreements: with Trento, to build the new tunnel on the 45 bis after the landslide between Limone and Riva; with Verona concerning Lemont’s low-lake border traffic (inclusion in the three-year planning for the Sirmione-Peschiera bypass, up to Castelnuovo).
Parolini urged the Community to take a more active role in water regulation to prevent conflicts from the past months, when millions of cubic meters of water were discharged into Garda from the Adige via the Mori tunnel without the riviera municipalities being informed.
President Giuseppe Mongiello, a former mayor of Salò elected in December, reported on activities from the first three months and future prospects, calling for a revision of the statute. Further details will be covered in a subsequent article.
The assembly then approved the 2000 financial statement, which shows 400 million lire in overdue payments to be collected, and amended the 2001 budget.
Approved also was an increase in the president’s allowance, raised from 1.5 million lire gross (set in 1992) to 4.5 million. To give a comparison, under last year’s law, the mayor of a town with a population between 5,000 and 10,000 receives 5.4 million lire; for towns with 10,000 to 30,000 residents, the figure is 6 million lire.