Ten-twelve floors behind the Archimede high school? Is this a joke? Absolutely not. It is the project that falls within the scope of the “Zanklon” operation, which our newspaper wrote about yesterday, in a page signed by Sebastiano Caspanello. An operation that relies on the use of financial resources allocated by the Pnrr and on urban planning exemptions. And which is causing doubts and perplexities in Palazzo Zanca. And God forbid.
Two indispensable premises. The first: the general objective of the program is acceptable, because it involves the construction of new building complexes intended (albeit only for the first 12 years) for student residences. And we know very well how much the city needs facilities for off-site students, also in light of the degree of internalization of our University and the increasingly numerous presence of young people from many countries around the world.
The second premise: the exceptions to the General Master Plan, the “pencil strokes”, the amendments and variations, have devastated the hilly slopes of the city, often in an irreversible way. The real eco-monsters, rather than the great works longed for or feared, are there, making a fine show of themselves, or hiding, close to the mountains, in areas at very serious seismic and hydrogeological risk, with no escape routes, in defiance of every rule and every regulation on urban greenery.
But let’s go back to the “Zanklon” operation. Can a project be allowed that involves a ten-storey building, plus two basements, for a height of over 30 meters (nine more than those permitted) and a building volume of almost 65 thousand cubic metres, in the Boccetta area, behind the Archimede high school, right there where – as a result of the transformation of areas from agricultural greenery to a building zone, decided by the city council – the construction of an imposing building complex has already been permitted in the not too distant past?
The rendering of the “Zanklon Capital” project takes us back decades, when Messina handed itself over helplessly to the wild construction of palaces, townhouses and terraced houses, which left us to imagine a city of three hundred thousand inhabitants. And which instead have only left a permanent scar on the territory, while thousands of houses in the city are vacant and unused (in the face of a growing housing emergency, due to increasingly rampant poverty).
The Pnrr provides for urban planning exemptions for projects that fall within the Recovery and Resilience Plan. But the measures must, in any case, be voted on by the Chamber of Palazzo Zanca. And the evaluation must be free from conditioning, because the choice of places to build is also important, not just the purpose for which the interventions were designed. Building further behind the Archimede is not a questionable choice. It’s madness.