Environmental Recovery and Urban Regeneration of the areas of significant nazional interest at the time of the PNRR. The commissioning of the Bagnoli-Coroglio area

It has long been fully recognized that environmental remediation operations cannot be separated from an overall regeneration of the affected areas . Increasingly, reclamation and redevelopment must go through environmental remediation not only in brownfields but also in many urban areas. In fact, the failure to provide for a general redevelopment of the area in which the site to be reclaimed is located results, on the one hand, in a loss of opportunities in investment and, on the other hand, in the difficulty of achieving ambitious sustainable development goals. In recent years, the national Legislator has brought its attention to the intertwining of environmental and urban regeneration strategy with two different approaches . First, a simplified procedure for reclamation operations was introduced in the Environment Code, replacing the ex ante authorization regime with an ex post control and providing reduced project approval times for reclamation facilities (art. 242-bis d.lgs. no. 152 of 2006, inserted by art. 13 d.l. no. 16 of 2014, converted by l. no. 116 of 2014, and subsequently amended by art. 34, par. 10-bis, d.l. no. 133 of 2014, converted by l. no. 164 of 2014). The purpose of this privileged scheme is to reduce the administrative and economic costs of urban operations to be carried out on contaminated sites. It can be availed of by the economic operator interested in assuming the remediation work at its own expense. Second, there is a special and contingent discipline, generated by and for the Bagnoli-Coroglio area, intended, at least in part, for a broader scope of application (art. 33 d.l. no. 133 of 2014, converted by l. no. 164 of 2014). It is provided, first, that the rules on environmental reclamation and urban regeneration of areas of significant national interest pertain to environmental protection and the essential levels of services referred to in art. 117, par. 2, lett. s) and m), of the Constitution. The exercise of administrative functions related to reclamation operations is attributed to the state, which ensures the participation of the territorial authorities concerned in the formation of decisions. The status of a site of national strategic interest is attributed, by resolution of the Council of Ministers, to areas where pollution and contamination have assumed such a level as to require more incisive remediation measures than those originally envisaged for sites of national interest. For each area of significant national interest, a specific program of environmental remediation and strategic guidance for urban regeneration (PERUR) is prepared, representing an attempt to merge environmental remediation projects with territorial regeneration. An Extraordinary Government Commissioner and an Implementing Party oversee the reclamation operations, for the completion of which they may proceed by way of derogation from articles 252 and 252-bis of the Environmental Code, for procedural profiles only. Special provisions are provided for the Bagnoli-Coroglio area. An Extraordinary Commissioner and an Implementing Party oversee environmental remediation and territorial regeneration operations. The Implementing Party is identified as Invitalia s.p.a., an in-house company of the state. It is appointed by way of derogation from the provisions for SINs in article 33, par. 6, which entrusts its identification to a decree of the President of the Council of Ministers. The formation, approval, and implementation of the PERUR of the Bagnoli-Coroglio area has been entrusted to a Government Extraordinary Commissioner and Invitalia s.p.a., as the Implementing Party. Art. 33, par. 12, stipulates that the ownership of the areas and buildings subject to redevelopment and redevelopment, originally belonging to Bagnoli Futura s.p.a., is transferred by d.P.C.M. to the Implementing Party, subject to payment of compensation. Compared to the ordinary process of cleaning up an area, the provision of a PERUR is a discriminating and additional factor, as it expresses the need to proceed in parallel with the environmental remediation and territorial redevelopment of the polluted area. It is clear, however, that the implementation of these objectives passes through derogatory provisions and extraordinary bodies, which, perhaps, imply the need to rethink the general regulations.