ROME – The Constitutional Court, with sentence no. 82 filed today, declared the constitutional illegitimacy of the art. 4 of the law of the Puglia Region n. 19 of 2023, which provided for the exclusion from the environmental and landscape assessment procedures, until 31 December 2023, of “parking areas for public and temporary use not exceeding one hundred and twenty days”, provided that no later than thirty days from at the end of its use the restoration of the state of the places was guaranteed. This was announced by the Consulta’s press office.
This provision had been challenged by the Government for violation of the exclusive legislative competence of the State regarding “protection of the environment, ecosystem and cultural heritage”, referred to in art. 117, second paragraph, letter s), of the Constitution.
Firstly, the Court considered that the regional legislator had introduced an exception to the art. 146 of the cultural heritage and landscape code, which provides for the need for landscape authorization. In this way, the Region has replaced the state legislator, who is responsible, by constant constitutional jurisprudence, to determine the prerequisites and characteristics of this authorization, of any exemptions and simplifications of the procedure, due to the different impact of the works on the intangible value of the environment.
Secondly, the Court held that the exclusion from the environmental assessment procedures also violated the art. 117, second paragraph, letter s), of the Constitution. By not providing for any limit on the capacity of the car parks, in fact, the regional provision would have allowed the creation of more than 500 parking spaces, in contrast with point 7, letter b) of the Annex IV to the second part of the environmental code, which subjects car parks of this size, regardless of their temporary or stable nature, to verification of their suitability for environmental impact assessment.
In this respect, the Court recalled its constant position according to which it is not up to the regions to decide what the conditions and conditions determine exclusion from environmental impact assessments. Similar interventions, in fact, alter the balance point set by the State between the need to simplify and accelerate the administrative procedure, on the one hand, and the special protection that must be reserved for environmental assets, on the other hand. A balance point which also corresponds to a standard of environmental protection, as such which cannot be derogated from by regional legislation.
