Five hours’ drive every day for a month from Marcon (Venice) to Cortina (Belluno), just to be able to be a professor. It is a real odyssey that Ivano Apisa, 49 years old, tells to Corriere del Veneto. It’s all the fault of the prohibitive rental prices of Ampezzo homes which would have forced him into forced commuting. Apisa had obtained a teaching position at the Cortina middle school last November but when it came to finding accommodation in the area the teacher realized that the Ampezzo rents would cost him his teacher’s salary. “I couldn’t afford to spend 1,200-1,500 euros a month,” he says, “against a paycheck of around 1,650.”
After a month of traveling by car, Apisa finally found a room in Calalzo, 45 minutes from Cortina. “Of course, now I’m closing the month at zero – he continues – but in November I lost money, between petrol and tolls”. Not to mention that on June 15th he will have to leave the accommodation “because it will be rented to tourists”. The future, therefore, remains uncertain for the professor. «Without a solution I will have to ask to return to Marcon, again as a substitute teacher – he says. And I would be very sad to leave my boys.”
For the mayor of Cortina, Gianluca Lorenzi, the case of Ivano Apisa, the professor who teaches in Cortina where he is unable to find accommodation at a non-tourist price, would be nothing more than the expression of “an issue that has been on the table for years now” and which also has a heavy impact on the initial search for housing solutions by young couples. «The previous administrations – he recalls – had looked for a solution with houses under surface rights, a system thanks to which citizens could build houses in cooperatives on municipal land offered on free loan for 99 years plus another 99 to children. But even in this case, the construction of an apartment implies an investment of 300 to 400 thousand euros for the construction alone, which few have been able to afford.”
With respect to the room for maneuver of a Municipality, Lorenzi hopes that by the end of his mandate, in 2027, a Territorial Planning Plan (Pat) will be approved which allows the construction of municipally owned houses to be rented at a controlled price. «With the commitments we have in view of the 2026 Olympics – the mayor continues – this will however be a long journey. Housing difficulties are very close to our hearts – he concludes – but as a municipal administration we cannot do much ». Broadening our gaze to the entire Belluno area, the president of the Province, Roberto Padrin, first of all lets the data speak for itself.
In 2021, out of the 178,371 homes present, 85,956 (48.2%) were unoccupied, and since 64.3% of these are located in the northern part of the territory, it can be assumed that these are largely residences that the owners reserve for rent tourist. It should also be considered that 47% of the houses were built before 1961 and therefore their redevelopment involves significant financial efforts. «Housing in the Belluno area is one of the most delicate issues in the future – continues Padrin – and the removal of the population, together with the progressive difficulty of companies in attracting and keeping workers in the province, are the various manifestations of an issue to be addressed finally in a serious way. We need to bring local authorities, trade associations, trade unions, the banking system and anyone else who is entitled to the same table to seek shared solutions. And it takes a sense of responsibility. In Longarone, the municipality of which I am mayor – Padrin finally highlights – we gave up on selling three apartments in order to accommodate 11 workers from the local retirement home who otherwise would not have known where to live”.
