«The variant does not currently define choices that explain localized direct effects in the territory of the Municipality, but limits itself to dictating a discipline relating to actions entrusted to a future development which cannot currently be foreseen”, they write administrative judges. Therefore the provision does not harm the interests of the municipal administrations of Trento and Rovereto.
The two sentences of the TAR of Trento
It is one of the salient passages of two sentences from the TAR of Trento which declared inadmissible the appeals presented by Palazzo Thun and the Municipality of Rovereto, represented by the lawyer Luca Barberi, against the Province and the Ministry of Infrastructure to cancel all measures relating to the variant to the provincial urban plan on the eastern corridor. The objective was to block the Province’s intention to broaden the range of action of the Valdastico and provide for the exit south of Rovereto. However the Municipalities have never hidden their opposition to an artery connecting Trentino and Veneto that crosses the local territory and Terragnolo has also called a consultative referendum. Trento and Rovereto they wasted no time and moved immediately on the legal level but the draft variation to the Pup, adopted with the resolution of 20 October 2023, focuses only on the method and “the council – underlines the panel, chaired by judge Alessandra Farina – he made no concrete choice“, furthermore “the regulatory contents of the variant – the TAR further observes – are not of a new configuration compared to the Pup currently in force”. No substantial innovations have been introduced.
Traffic data
Palazzo Thun, through its lawyer Denise Chiogna, had also complained in the appeal about the lack of representative and adequate traffic data for a mobility systemstigmatizing the absence in the measure adopted by the council of an assessment of the potential impacts on the city of Trento and on valley road system and the definition of the role that the Valsugana railway and state road 47 would assume with respect to the Trento hub. But all these aspects refer to concrete choices and actions which currently, according to the TAR, cannot even be foreseen.
The provincial administration has only defined for now methodologies and analysis criteria and comparison of the interests involved for the identification – through the participation of the territories in the context of approval of the subordinate urban planning instruments – of the infrastructure solutions that guarantee the satisfaction of connectivity needs while respecting the environmental protection of the territory. The regulatory part of the variant, they recall in sentence the judges, «expressly provides for the mandatory participation of local authorities and other interested parties in the choices that will be made – we read in the document, filed yesterday – and the method identified in the variant contemplates this phase of participation with the aim of highlight and identify needs and expectations in the territories included in the connection area”. So do the judges, but the TAR opens the door to future action by the two administrations who will have the right to challenge the subsequent, more specific acts of the variant which has yet to reach the provincial council.
The draft law
The discussion in the chamber has not been scheduled, but it will certainly be a subject of conflict. «It divides the same majority», observed the group leader of the Democratic Party, Alessio Manica, who has always been critical of the work and when the text of the bill arrives in the commission and then in the chamber it will be the Democratic Party itself who will oppose it, but against the artery they have environmentalist associations also lined up. The perspective of a Valdastico with an exit in Vallagarina, the valley community and the municipalities of Vallagarina do not like it at all, while the categories consider the work “strategic” for Trentino. A rather heated debate is expected.
