The judges of appeal recognize the illegal subdivision now prescribed and now in the Scifo area who will demolish the mess?
CROTONE – The illegal development took place but the crimes are time-barred and therefore the accessory provision for the restoration of the state of the places must also be revoked. This is explained by the Court of Appeal of Catanzaro, which filed the reasons for the sentence with which, three months ago, it declared extinct the crimes for which, in July 2021, the Criminal Court of Crotone had ordered five sentences in the trial on the highly contested Marine Park Village, also canceling the condemnation to “delisting”. But the judges do not explain who will have to pay for the demolition of the devastation committed in the enchanting Scifo area, in the heart of the “Capo Rizzuto” protected marine area and a stone’s throw from the Magna Graecia column, symbol of the city of Pythagoras in the world.
The Court of Crotone had ordered that the costs for restoring the state of the places were to be borne by the entrepreneurs and the designer. The owners of the “massacre”, however, not only did not demolish it but also filed a civil lawsuit during which there is a risk of a new Punta Perotti case. Considering themselves damaged by the Municipality because they trusted that the building permit was legitimate, they ask for compensation of seven million euros.
Meanwhile, the Court presided over by Alessandro Bravin reiterates that the sack of the territory was about to be perpetrated, but was stopped by the Crotone Prosecutor’s Office.
«While the agreement assumed that they were light structures, in reality the bungalows permanently anchored to the concrete floors capable of accommodating three, four guests each, together with the restaurant, the swimming pool and the associated services – it is said in the sentence – this suggested a stable increase in the urban load, even higher in periods of peak tourism also with reference to the area’s road system, electricity resources and service networks in general”. Yet the judges could not help but note the statute of limitations, as the deputy attorney general Roberto Amorosi had done.
In the first instance, sentences of two years and six months of imprisonment each were ordered for Elisabetta Dominijanni, manager of the Municipality’s Urban Planning sector, and for Gaetano Stabile, responsible for the proceedings; one year and six months of arrest for the entrepreneurs Armando Scalise and Salvatore Scalise and for the designer Gioacchino Buonaccorsi. In the first instance, Mario Pagano, former archaeological and landscape superintendent for the provinces of Catanzaro, Crotone and Cosenza, accused of forgery, was acquitted and therefore dropped out of the appeal process. However, the appeal sentence confirms the sentence to pay compensation for damages in favor of the civil parties Municipality and Legambiente and the confiscation of the land and works.
The hypothesis of abuse of office for which Dominijanni and Stabile were responsible for the issuing of the Municipality’s building permit in December 2011 in violation of various regulations had already been prescribed in the first instance, but not that connected to the extension in the face of a investigation absent. Because the Scalises were not agricultural entrepreneurs (they deal with tourism and the trade of sporting goods) and would have falsely certified the availability of the land. Despite the agritourism destination, they would have carried out a building project that “had no connection with the possible agricultural management of the land” and nothing was said in the project about the construction of 79 bungalows. Meanwhile, abuse of office is also repealed by the Nordio bill. The accusation of alteration of the natural beauty of an area subjected to dual guardianship restrictions from an environmental point of view and in an area of archaeological interest was also extinguished.
The Scalises and Buonaccorsi were also accused of excavating the swimming pool and the bungalow to be used as a restaurant in breach of the archaeological authorization of April 2009. Salvatore Scalise alone was also accused of having misled the public official who granted him the infamous agricultural entrepreneur certificate, but this accusation too is now time-barred.
A clear path, therefore, for the defenders of the defendants, the lawyers Mario Nigro, Domenico Grande Aracri, Francesco Scalzi, Giovanni Allevato, Mario Lucente, who obtained the “no right to proceed”. Despite the “significant transformation of the area” with the interventions described in the charges, namely the 79 bungalows equipped with kitchen and bathrooms, water drainage systems, and the buildings intended for a restaurant and swimming pool. The photos attached to the documents, the Court notes, show “the presence of stable housing structures which cannot be included in the notion of camping and camping village provided by regional legislation”.
On the administrative justice side, the Municipality’s ordinance, which in August 2019 ordered the demolition of the buildings built without title in an area subject to landscape, environmental and archaeological constraints, is now definitive, as established by the Council of State in January 2023. The 79 concrete slabs for the installation of the bungalows, the storage of materials, the reinforced concrete swimming pool and the building intended for a restaurant-pizzeria with wooden pillars must be demolished. We need to eliminate an ugliness that disfigures a promontory immersed in places of evocative beauty, in front of an enchanting sea and close to the finds of ancient Kroton. Given the non-compliance of the transgressor, the Municipality could calculate the costs to the private individual. But it doesn’t do so because the sword of Damocles of civil judgment looms. The frequenters of an uncontaminated cove had now become accustomed to the ravine that coexists with the enchantment of Scifo. Enchantment today also coexists with the absurd.
