There’s a bit of everything in those cards: 330 square meter buildings grown in the space of a few weeksbut also houses with taverns, apartments with terraces, premises for commercial use blossomed like mushrooms after a night shower. They are illegal buildings, definitively branded as such by a criminal sentence: houses and buildings that stand out in one of the most beautiful areas of the world – we are talking about the municipalities of the Campi Flegrei area -, but which do not fall down, are not demolished, but they remain there on display to offend an area at high seismic risk. I’m beyond that There are 120 structures scattered around in an area that has always been restricted, at the center of judicial processes that ended in a unique way: with the condemnation of the owner-builders and the obligation of demolition.
An obligation that is difficult to fulfill for at least two reasons: there is a lack of money for the demolition of the buildings (the defendants in these cases are almost never solvent); turning on bulldozers on a municipal territory is technically apolitical, not convenient in terms of returning votes in the next elections. Enough to push the attorney general of Naples in recent years Antonio Gialanella to report non-compliant administrations or to alert ordinary prosecutors and the Court of Auditors.
But let’s stick to the numerical aspects, in a transparency operation that aims to shed light on one of the phenomena that has plagued in the past that piece of territory that is now at the center of Italian attention due to the bradyseism nightmare. According to data from the Attorney General’s Office, led by Attorney General Antonio Gialanella, there are approximately 800 criminal cases pending. And by pending proceedings we mean convictions on appeal and demolition orders that must be put into execution, but which remain at a standstill. Same numbers as regards the Naples Prosecutor’s Office, when the trial against the squatters stops at first instance, the sentence becoming enforceable after just one verdict.
Again in broad terms, the General Prosecutor’s Office manages to demolish around a hundred irregular buildings in a year, with a rate of demolitions that also has to deal with the arrival of other judicial measures which become definitive over the last few months. Same trend and same numbers as regards the data from the urban planning crimes pool of the Naples Prosecutor’s Office led by Nicola Gratteri.
If this is the generic data, let’s see what happens in the Phlegraean municipalities. According to data from the General Prosecutor’s Office, there are currently 18 demolition orders not carried out in the municipality of Bacoli (over the last 15 years, the General Prosecutor’s Office has managed to complete around thirty demolitions); 8 illegal buildings to be demolished in Monte di Procida; 19 properties to be demolished in Pozzuoli (where in recent years around seventy demolitions of as many illegal structures have been completed); 14 irregular buildings to be removed instead in the municipality of Quarto, (in the last fifteen years they have been demolished 35 illegal artefacts). In all, around sixty properties for the General Prosecutor’s Office to which must be added around fifty cases involving demolition sentences issued in the first instance, always and only with the Phlegraean area in mind.
In summary, if we want to keep to the cold data, we can say that the bulk of the demolition sentences are concentrated on the outskirts of Naples, in the area now crossed by earthquakes caused by bradyseism. But at this point, it is worth thinking about the reasons for this phenomenon, starting from a question: why, after years of proceedings, are demolition sentences not carried out? What jams a mechanism that runs aground in the final part? It largely depends on the difficulty of finding funds, but also on political attention which – at least in previous generations – has always been intermittent. In short, after obtaining the demolition order, the condemned owner walks away.
He doesn’t invest a euro, perhaps declaring himself insolvent; at this point the Public Prosecutor’s Office and the Attorney General’s Office ask the Municipalities to intervene, but the coffers of our municipalities – as we know – are always in deficit; an appeal is made to Cassa Depositi e Prestiti and, only if funding arrives, illegal buildings can be demolished and waste and debris removed from the area.
All of this is provided that no execution incidents occur, which again block proceedings that – in some territories – no one has the intention of pushing forward.
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