Fewer apartments – around 65 and not the over one hundred that was discussed during the last council meeting -, public green areas around the building, a cycle path that connects via Carlo Porta to via XX Settembre in Garbatola to replace the one in the area of the sanctuary of the Madonna di Dio ‘l sa e la redevelopment of Piazza Italia in place of the roundabout between the Sempione state road and Piazza Europa. This is the direction in which the municipal administration of Nerviano is working together with the owners for the future of the so-called “Fungo”, the seven-storey building that has stood between via Europa and via XX Settembre since the 1990s and for decades it remained in a state of complete abandonment.
The renovation project and public works
The guidelines that Piazza Manzoni gave itself for the comparison with the property were: presented in recent days to the commission, where the need to “adapt the works indicated in the current agreement, signed 15 years ago – as the first citizen Daniela Colombo explains -, due to the changed socio-economic conditions of all residents” was discussed. From there the picture that is emerging, which speaks of approximately 65 apartments between 80 and 140 square meters “with particular attention to sustainability”, of green areas for public use in the area where the property overlooks and of a series of innovations in terms of public works that «the property will have to return for the benefit of the community» since the intervention is part of «an agreement with the institution which provides for the transformation of use in a residential-office sense of the building originally intended for tertiary-hotel activities».
As the cycle path between via Carlo Porta and via XX Settembre in Garbatola«in line with the extension plan of the cycle network, referred to in the technical-economic feasibility project presented in April 2022, which provides for the extension of the municipal cycle network in five directions, including the one identified, with the aim of connect the hamlets to the capital for cycling», with the new cycle path which would also cross the line of the “Cambio” project which will cross Nerviano. The “old” cycle path envisaged by the agreement, however, it would not have connected “to any pre-existing cycle path” and it would have needed “other works to build a network”, as well as involving the felling of some rows of trees and some expropriations and not arriving at the sanctuary and instead turning towards Parabiago.
And like the redevelopment of Piazza Italia, a work that «represents a fundamental piece in the process of valorising the territory and the economic activities present”. «In the resolution to establish the Urban Commercial District approved last March, the municipal administration sets itself the objective of develop the system competitiveness of commercial enterprises located in it through the promotion of the territory and the valorisation of the commercial context of the district for the benefit of both visitors and residents – explains the mayor -. Hence the need to counteract the desertification of local commerce through urban redevelopment which will benefit citizens and businesses. The layout will be as follows allow, in certain conditions/occasions, pedestrianization of the area with the aim of transforming urban space into a more sustainable, safe and attractive place, with benefits for the community and the environment”.
«Apart from the satisfaction of being able to say that thanks to the efforts we have seen made in recent months this administration has finally achieved the objective of starting a process of redevelopment of a degraded area and of a property abandoned for 34 years – concludes Daniela Colombo -, in the coming weeks the meetings with the owners will continue to finalize the details of the agreement with the aim of do not alter the qualitative and quantitative level of the original standards and remain compliant with the current PGT».
The doubts of the opposition
There are still many doubts from the opposition benches, with the League, the Nervianese Independent Group, Con Nerviano and Fratelli d’Italia asking for a new ad hoc commission meeting. For the former mayor Massimo Cozzi those provided by the municipal administration are «incomplete, fragmentary and incomplete information, given as simple information in a council commission where it was not even included in the agenda and where there was practically no Nervianese present given that, at the same time, there was the national team match. Let’s say not really the best way to encourage participation: similar topics deserve much more space.”
«Now our council group and that of Fratelli d’Italia, through their representatives in the commission, will ask for an urgent meeting to be convened a session with only this topic, to have detailed and clear information – continues Cozzi -. We wouldn’t want there to be a lot of talk about sharing choices on the one hand and this choice already being made on the other, given that the mayor already took it for granted. Let everything be brought to the commission as soon as possible to inform all the councilors and citizens well and in detail, to have all the elements to be able to express an opinion on the matter. Yet another coup from a mayor in obvious difficulty which, after the flop of the school campus and the former thermal power station on Via Pasubio, is now aiming for an unspecified pedestrian Piazza Italia. We want absolute clarity and transparency on this matter, Nerviano deserves better and as soon as possible».
The PD is on the same linewhich asks to know «whether the financial commitments that will be indicated in the new agreement will be equivalent to those envisaged by the original agreement» and «in which aspects the public works envisaged by the new agreement, compared to those indicated by the original agreement, would be more responsive to the public interest of the citizens of Nerviano”.
“I am the information that has arrived in recent days from the Colombo council is scarce and confusing, and partly contradictory on the new developments of the Garbatola “Mushroom” affair – underline the Dems -. Given the relevance of the news, one would have expected an official communication from the administration, which instead was completely lacking. It was only discussed in the city council on 13 June last thanks to the two questions presented by the opposition councilors of PD and Lega, to which the mayor Colombo responded by confirming the construction of 120 apartments and an office”.
«The mayor then underlined that the administration is considering “reconsidering the public works foreseen by the agreement” and to modify the agreement itself – the Democratic Party continues -. This statement is in stark contrast with what was previously claimed by the same council: in October 2023, in fact, the then councilor for public works Sergio Parini had declared in the city council that the content of the agreement, and therefore the public works envisaged, would not have changed, because “otherwise a sort of vulnerability would be created”. A few months later the mayor, in the role of councilor for public works, evidently changed her mind. In fact, just one week before the city council meeting on 13 June, during the meeting of the Territory and Environment council commission, radical changes announced in the restructuring project and in the agreementwhich will be removed and rewritten with public works completely different from those envisaged.”
