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A letter addressed to the entire Calabrian parliamentary delegation to raise the alarm on what are defined as “significant critical issues” contained in the draft of the National Nature Restoration Plan (PNR), currently in public consultation at the Ministry of the Environment and Energy Security.
It was signed by the president of Ance Calabria Roberto Rugna and the provincial presidents of the association of builders of Catanzaro, Cosenza, Reggio Calabria, Vibo Valentia and Crotone: Luigi Alfieri, Giuseppe Galiano, Michele Laganà, Domenico Ceravolo and Giuseppe Sammarco.
Ance Calabria’s alarm on the Nature Restoration Law
In the document sent to the Calabrian parliamentarians, Ance Calabria highlights how the draft Plan, drawn up in implementation of the European Regulation 2024/1991, the so-called «Nature Restoration Law», risks producing «an excess of national regulation» with potentially devastating effects not only for the construction sector, but for the entire economic and production system.
According to the builders, in fact, the text would introduce constraints and limitations well beyond what is required by European legislation, directly impacting the urban planning of the Municipalities and, in fact, blocking new building, infrastructural and production interventions.
The most contested constraints and the risk of a moratorium
Among the most contested points is «the introduction of green conformation restrictions on surfaces classified as urban green spaces (UGS) or tree covers (UTC), with direct effect of non-buildability even in conflict with the urban planning instruments in force».
Particularly critical, according to Ance, would also be “the provision of a multi-year suspension of building permits from 1 September 2026 until the European monitoring scheduled for 2030” for all interventions that involve the reduction of urban green surfaces or tree cover.
The technical dossier and the “Gold Plating” accusation
The concerns are explored in depth in the technical document attached to the letter, in which Ance openly speaks of the risk of “administrative paralysis” and of a potential increase in litigation with possible economic repercussions on municipal budgets.
The dossier also claims that the Plan introduces a form of “gold plating”, i.e. a more restrictive national transposition compared to European obligations, a practice prohibited by Italian legislation on the transposition of community directives.
According to Ance, the effects of the planned measures would not only concern the construction sector, but also industrial activities, energy plants, infrastructures, logistics, urban regeneration and extractive activities.
New bureaucratic burdens and absence of transitional rules
The document then goes into detail about the disputed provisions: from the introduction of new municipal planning instruments such as the “Urban nature plan” and the “Urban nature regulation”, not foreseen by the current legislation, up to the new “zero net budget” criterion in the Strategic Environmental Assessment and Environmental Impact Assessment procedures, which could prevent the approval of projects and urban plans in the absence of preventive environmental compensation.
Ance Calabria also disputes the risk of retroactivity of the measures, highlighting how the draft does not provide for any transitional regulations for building permits already issued, urban planning agreements or ongoing program agreements.
The builders’ proposals for balanced development
The document makes precise requests for changes: to safeguard the urban planning instruments already approved, eliminate the moratorium on building permits and urban planning plans, cancel the new environmental urban planning charges and introduce incentives and financing to accompany the ecological transition without blocking the development of the territories.
For Calabrian builders, in fact, the issue of environmental protection cannot translate “into an indiscriminate stop to urban and infrastructural development”. The document underlines the need for “a more balanced and proportional approach” that reconciles environmental sustainability, economic growth and the right of territories to plan their own future.