Lastly, on 6 July 2020, the Decreto Semplificazioni, Decree No. 76/2020 (hereinafter also “Decree”) was approved with the wording "unless appropriate arrangements", aimed at streamlining or removing obstacles to the Italian economic development. We are faced with a measure that simplifies, speeds up and digitizes administrative procedures, unblocks construction sites and the procurement sector with the aim of making the Country more agile, modern and competitive.
In fact, the Decreto Semplificazioni, published in the Official Journal on 17 July 2020, intervenes, in particular, in four different areas, making changes: (i) to public contracts and construction, (ii) to administrative procedures, (iii) to measures for the support and dissemination of digital administration and lastly (iv) to the field of business, environmental and green economy activities.
With specific reference to the urban-building sector, that is the subject of this note, the abovementioned Decree, in Article 10 - in order to facilitate and speed up building procedures, reduce the burden on citizens and businesses, and ensure the recovery and upgrading of the existing building stock and the development of urban regeneration processes - amends Presidential Decree No. 380 of 6 June 2001 ( hereinafter 'Testo Unico dell' Edilizia' or 'TUE').
Below are the most significant simplification measures in the building sector aimed at facilitating urban regeneration not without first mentioning how the text published in the Official Journal removed the reform on building amnesty aimed at overcoming the principle of so-called “double compliance”.
1. Simplification of demolition and reconstruction work and procedures for amending building elevations
The Decreto Semplificazioni modifies the Article 2-bis of the TUE and, in particular, paragraph 1-ter, introduced by the Law No. 55/2019 (so-called “Sblocca Cantieri”), in point of limits on existing buildings. The original text provided, in case of demolition and reconstruction, the respect of the distances legitimately pre-existing, as well as the coincidence of the area of sediments and the volume of the demolished building, within the limits of the maximum height of the latter.
With the amendment made by the Decreto Semplificazioni, the reconstruction in compliance with the distances legitimately pre-existing is always permitted, even if the size of the relevant lot does not allow the modification of the area of sediments in order to respect the minimum distances between buildings and from the boundaries. Any volumetric incentives that may be granted for the intervention may also be implemented with extensions outside the outline and by exceeding the maximum height of the demolished building, always in compliance with the distances legitimately pre-existing.
Therefore, the definition of the category of building renovation has been changed, including demolition and reconstruction of existing buildings with different shapes, elevations, floors and planivolumetric and typological characteristics, with the innovations necessary to adapt to anti-seismic regulations, to apply accessibility regulations, to install technological systems and to increase energy efficiency.
The intervention may also provide, only in the cases expressly provided for by the current legislation or the current town-planning regulations, increases in volume also to promote urban regeneration interventions. The interventions aimed at restoring buildings, or parts of them, possibly collapsed or demolished, through their reconstruction, are also building renovation, provided that their pre-existing consistency can be ascertained. It is understood that, with reference to buildings subject to the Code of Cultural Heritage and Landscape (Legislative Decree No. 42 of 22 January 2004), demolition and reconstruction works and the restoration of collapsed or demolished buildings constitute building renovation work only if the shape, elevations, sediments, planivolumetric and typological characteristics of the pre-existing building are maintained and in the absence of any increase in volume.
2. Admissibility of changes to the facades as extraordinary maintenance works if they are essential to ensure the habitability or accessibility of the building units
The Decreto Semplificazioni extends the definition of "extraordinary maintenance operations" pursuant to Article 3 TUE, classifying as such also those modifications to the facades of buildings legitimately constructed that are necessary to maintain or acquire the habitability of the building or access to it, where they do not affect the architectural decorum of the building and provided that such intervention complies with the current urban and building regulations and does not concern buildings subject to the Code of Cultural Heritage and Landscape.
What mentioned above is designed to ensure that building facades can be changed quickly and easily if such modifications are essential to ensure the habitability or accessibility of the building units. The modification of the facades in the absence of the abovementioned conditions, instead, remains to be qualified as building renovation works.
3. Free construction
Another relevant innovation concerns the category of free construction, i.e. the set of interventions for which no licences or authorisations are required.
Indeed, the Decree has made changes to paragraph 1, letter e-bis of Article 6 TUE, that identifies as free construction works the interventions aimed at satisfying objective, contingent and temporary needs, immediately removed when the need ceases.
The replacement of abovementioned letter e-bis aims to solve the problem, linked to the excessive brevity of the term indicated for the aforesaid contingent and temporary works, extending it from 90 to 180 days.
4. Clarification of the requirements and specificities of the reconstructive restructuring measures
A further intervention of the Decreto Semplificazioni concerns the notion of building renovation, subject to a building permit, as provided for by Article 10 paragraph 1 letter c) of TUE.
The Decree defines building renovation as those interventions leading to a building organization in whole or in part different from the previous one, in cases where they also involve changes in the overall volume of buildings or that, limited to buildings in zones A , involve changes in the use, as well as interventions involving changes in the outline or overall volume of buildings or facades of buildings subject to protection under the Code of Cultural Heritage and Landscape.
5. Strengthening incentives for urban regeneration interventions
With the aim of facilitating urban regeneration, renovation, as well as the recovery and reuse of properties that have been or are in the process of being disposed of, Article 17 paragraph 4-bis of TUE concerning reduction or exemption from construction contributions is amended.
In fact, it is foreseen, for such interventions, a construction contribution reduced by no less than 20% compared to that provided for in the regional parametric tables with the right of the municipalities to decide further reductions of this contribution, until the complete exemption from it.
6. Building permit: attestation of the formation of silence - consent by the building one-stop shop (sportello unico edilizia)
Article 20, paragraph 8 TUE, as modified by Decreto Semplificazioni, introduces the right for the interested party to request from the building one-stop-shop (Sportello Unico dell’Edilizia) a certificate of silence on the expiry of the deadlines relating to the procedure for the granting of the building permit.
This attestation does not, however, have a constitutive effect, but only a declaratory one.
The declaration ensures that the prerequisites for the silence - consent have been met (and, therefore, that the terms of the procedure have elapsed, in the absence of requests for document additions or unsuccessful investigations and denial measures). If this is not the case, the building one-stop shop shall inform the person concerned that such acts have taken place within the same time limit.
7. Construction tolerances
With the introduction of art. 34-bis to the TUE, the Decreto Semplificazioni identifies those interventions that do not constitute construction violations, defining them as "construction tolerances". Belong to the so-called construction tolerances: (i) interventions that do not exceed the limit of 2% of the measures provided for in the qualification of height, detachment, cubage, covered area and any other parameter of the individual building units, unless they are buildings subject to protection under the Code of Cultural Heritage and Landscape , (ii) geometrical irregularities and alterations to the finishes of buildings of minor importance, (iii) the different location of installations and internal works, (iv) alterations to the finishes of buildings, carried out during the works for the implementation of building permits, provided that they do not lead to a breach of building regulations and do not affect the habitability of the building.
The executive tolerances mentioned above, carried out during previous building works, not constituting building violations, are declared by the qualified technician, for the purpose of certifying the legitimate status of the buildings, in the forms relating to new applications, communications and building reports or, with a specific sworn statement attached to the deeds having as their object the transfer or constitution, or dissolution of the commune, of rights in rem.
8. Extension of the validity of building permits
The Decree in question introduces a simplified mechanism for the extension of building permits, involving the possibility for private individuals to apply for an extension of the validity of the building permit for three years.
And so, before the deadlines for the start or the end of the works (respectively one year and three years from the issue of the title, pursuant to Article 15 TUE) have expired, the private individual has the right to extend them by simply notifying the Municipal one-stop-shop, as well as providing for a further, discretionary extension, if justified reasons arise.
9. Certified notification of the construction wprks in progress (“Segnalazione certificata di inzio attività – SCIA”)
The certified notification may also be submitted, in the absence of works, for buildings legitimately built without habitability meeting the requirements defined by decree of the Minister of Infrastructure and Transport prepared in agreement with the Minister of Health, the Minister for Cultural Heritage and Activities and Tourism and the Minister for Public Administration, to be adopted, subject to agreement in Unified Conference, within ninety days from the date of entry into force of this provision.