L’AQUILA – “The time for Piazza Duomo has been extended, works in Piazza Palazzo, Piazza del Teatro, Piazza Chiarino started without any planning. This is how those who bet on the center are mortified. Ensure compensation for penalized commercial activities. The historic center suffocated by construction sites started without any consultation and planning is, today, the emblematic image of the administrative failure of the right”.
This is what we read in a note from the L’Aquila Democratic Party which we report in full below.
“For months we have been asking, unheard, for a discussion to be opened with residents, professionals and traders to establish the processing methods on open construction sites and indicate a certain timetable for the works. Now, the issues have come home to roost.
Beyond the announcements, which appear daily in the press, the reality is that the redevelopment work on Piazza Duomo has lengthened dramatically, so much so that the deadline for the works has been moved again to September 30th; this means that the construction site will impact the lives of residents and professional and commercial activities even in the summer period, which has a higher tourist vocation, with the consequent traffic problems.
A cleaver, in particular for entrepreneurs who, with courage, have bet on the rebirth of the historic center.
If we add the construction sites, also behind schedule, in Piazza del Teatro, Piazza Palazzo, Piazza Chiarino, and if we were to believe the umpteenth promise of restarting the works on the underground services (here, the delays have now lasted for years) in the San Marciano area, it is clear that the historic center is, in fact, unlivable, and will be so throughout the summer, with economic consequences that really risk taking on dramatic contours.
And in this already critical situation, work has also begun on the assembly of the stage at the San Bernardino staircase which will host the summer events, with the establishment of parking bans in Largo Pischedda and Piazza San Bernardino which will deprive citizens of the few available parking spaces .
The failure of the Biondi administration which is decreeing the death of the historic center is evident. We must act now, or it will be too late.
In addition to certain and measurable times for the completion of the works and a planning of the works, we are once again asking the administration for a commitment to ensure compensation for the penalized commercial activities, and in particular a new ‘Making the centre’ tender given that the resources are there but they have been kept frozen for years, without explanation.
We also ask for a definitive parking plan, concrete and consistent with the city’s expectations, on which we can no longer linger: the absence of parking spaces is making life impossible for professionals and residents, for citizens who want to go to the center and , consequently, to traders. In July 2021, 4 new car parks for 1559 spaces were promised in San Silvestro, in Viale della Croce Rossa, Viale Gran Sasso and Porta Leoni. We are, in fact, at year zero, with only the parking lot at Porta Leoni which has been hastily patched up and is absolutely insufficient. On the other hand, for years we have been proposing – again, unheeded – to create at least one multi-storey car park on Via XX Settembre, in place of the former Inam building: the then municipal councilor Carla Mannetti said she was in favor, the ASL, owner of the property, was available to consider exchanges, renouncing the already financed reconstruction of the building. It would have been enough to ask the mission’s technical structure to remodulate the resources to unblock the project: if we had started in time, today we would already have the multi-storey car park built.
The truth is that the failure to plan the works in progress is only the tip of the iceberg of an absolute lack of vision and strategy for the historic centre. Not only the issue of access, and therefore of parking planning capable of imagining the city thirty years from now: we have no idea about the refunctionalization of public space, think of the more than probable end of the market in the square; we have no idea about the future destination of the impressive public building stock available, of the housing stock available to the Municipality following equivalent purchases and which could stimulate residential housing in sustainable terms; we remain deaf to the request to bring at least one cycle of schools back to the center, from kindergarten to middle school; there is no coherent trade plan, if it is true that the historic center is spoken of as a natural commercial center but then the construction of shopping centers on the outskirts is allowed.
An idea of the city is missing. And time is running out now.
The establishment of a permanent consultation table with residents, professionals and traders, in the presence of delegates from the majority and opposition council groups, is urgently needed. We need to move. Otherwise, the historic center is destined to become depopulated, remaining a scenic backdrop for a few summer events”, concludes the PD note.
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