The Angelica Courts, which in the administration’s hopes, should be completed in the area of the former Palaspecchi by 2026, have a very troubled history and heated debate in the city council. It was October 2022 when the council groups of Pd, Ferrara Bene Comune and Azione Civica, asked for a correction to the resolution regarding the expropriations for the construction of the works. The issue was linked to the lands that, before the expropriation procedures, belonged to the Ferrara 2007 company. At stake were 15 million euros. Pnrr financing, as part of the Pinqua tender, on whose arrival, however, hung the sword of Damocles of the property. “The Council has proposed a project without having the availability of the area subject to the intervention, risking throwing away fifteen million of the PNRR”, argued at the time the group leaders Francesco Colaiacovo (Pd), Roberta Fusari (Ac) and Dario Maresca (Fbc). An argument that was also shared by the former mayor Tiziano Tagliani, questioned by Carlino: “Not only was the guarantee called in 2017, but the Municipality collected three million euros. The Court of Auditors, among other things, congratulated the outcome of the operation, archiving the complaint of the then secretary of the League, Nicola Lodi”. The perspective, in short, was diametrically opposed. Even more so since the opposition councilors, at the time, argued that “the Municipality obtained a profit from that operation”. “Until 2019 – the minority councilors wrote in October 2022 – Ferrara 2007 gave the Municipality 5.2 million euros (corresponding to the building and its money) and participated in the restructuring agreements. Today, how much of the Pnrr money intended for the citizens of Ferrara will the Municipality give to Ferrara 2007?”. Now, clearly, the impasse is resolved. And the Municipality can proceed with the works. But, even the expropriation procedure was complex. It was the renunciation to continue with the legal process by the company – in liquidation – Ferrara 2007 that ‘unblocked’ everything. “The appellant company – according to the lawyers’ letter to the TAR – in light of entrepreneurial considerations linked to circumstances that occurred in December 2023, no longer has an interest in continuing the proceedings”. The lawyers’ request was therefore to declare “the inadmissibility of the appeal due to the supervening lack of interest, with full compensation of the legal costs”. If the legal proceedings had been prolonged, the risk could have been configured, for the Municipality, of seeing the disbursement of funds vanish. Today – or rather, since June 24 – we can say that the ‘danger’ has passed.
f. d. b.
