The Friuli Venezia Giulia Regional Administrative Court has accepted the appeals promoted by the Islamic cultural centers Daru Salaam and Baitus Salat presented against two ordinances of the Municipality of Monfalcone (Gorizia). This was announced by the legal representative of the appellants, Vincenzo Latorraca.
The centers had turned to administrative justice against two provisions, issued by the mayor Anna Maria Cisint, relating to two different buildings used by the cultural centers for prayer but having different intended uses, which the Municipality ordered to be restored.
According to the TAR, the Municipality “has not adequately demonstrated that the change in use constitutes an ‘essential change'”. In fact, in the contested provision: it was erroneously believed that the change in intended use was not permitted for the area by the municipal planning instruments; it was not adequately demonstrated that the change in intended use entailed changes to the standards”.
For the TAR, we read in one of the two sentences, “the municipal interpretation is not only not based on any explicit provision of the plan rules, but is in conflict with them to the extent that services and collective equipment”.
“Not only that. Such an interpretation – which allowed, with an absolute character, the creation of spaces intended for worship exclusively in certain areas predetermined by the planning, prohibiting it in others – might not be compatible with the constitutional framework”.
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