The area, destined to radically change its face, is abandoned and nature has taken possession of it for years. Conad Centro Nord, which owns it, will build several structures and ecologists are raising the alarm: “The green surface will be reduced by almost 60%”
REGGIO EMILIA – “If there’s one thing we don’t need, it’s making a permeable area waterproof. It should be article 1 of the Emilia Romagna Region after what it went through a year ago.”
The area destined to radically change its face is located in Villa Hospice, has been almost abandoned and inaccessible for some time. It is the cordoned off quadrilateral where the municipal retirement home once stood, demolished in 2006. Conad Centro Nord, which owns it, will build various structures which will house, in addition to a supermarket, also public services such as the library but above all the Community house. The aspect of land consumption ended up under the lens of a public meeting. “The green surface – say the organizers – will be reduced by almost 60%”.
“Where there is free soil with spontaneous vegetation, there will be yet another concrete.” Paolo Pileri from the Polytechnic of Milan was the expert invited to the initiative organized by the activists of Integral Ecology, Extinction Rebellion and Ripuliamoci. “The Community House is built, which is absolutely necessary. However, we believe that the waterproofing of this green area can be avoided if we aim for a construction in an existing building nearby, i.e. the Esquirol pavilion which belonged to the San Lazzaro”, the words of Giuseppe Bonazzi of Integral Ecology Reggio Emilia.
A further event promoted by the environmentalists themselves made it possible to see the area affected by the intervention up close, with a walk. The urban planning agreement stipulated between the Municipality and Conad provides for the planting of 750 trees, approximately seven times those that will be cut. “But there is a choice between what is about to become a forest and instead orderly nature with lots of concrete. I’m on the side of the trees,” commented the botanist Ugo Pellini.
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