Regional Landscape Planning and Local Planning. Insights from the Italian Context

Abstract

Landscape has acquired great importance in the urban and territorial policies of European countries after the European Landscape Convention. Italy has a long tradition in the protection of landscape and cultural heritage, characterised by a particular attention to the history and the identity culture of the communities. The main rule in this field, the Code of Cultural Heritage and Landscape of 2004 (Urbani Code), refers to a mix of environmental, cultural, and social factors belonging to different types of natural and urban landscapes that Regional Landscape Plans have to identify, sharing with local communities. The most important innovation concerns the attempt to overcome the binding and regulatory approach, only focused on protection constraints, in order to generate high awareness about the identity value of landscape and to encourage a more democratic community participation in the landscape policies. The ineffectiveness of landscape policies is often due to the lack of sharing of the landscape vision and planning approaches established at regional level, with local authorities and settled communities. This paper reflects on the topic of inter-institutional collaboration between national, regional, and local authorities, by focusing on the process of adaptation of urban local plans to the regional landscape plans and comparing different regional contexts. The article highlights a strong delay in the approval of regional landscape plans and a relevant inter-institutional conflict in the co-planning phase with the national authority, leading to the ineffectiveness of landscape plans in the transfer of regional landscape planning guidelines to the local landscape scale, with relevant consequences on territorial government, between conservative measures and transformation drivers.

Settlements and Urban Morphological Quality in Landscape Planning–Analytical Models and Regulating Tools in the Landscape Plan of Regione Toscana

“…Before examining the issue, we must say that the control and management chain of urban landscape quality-which is guided by both a Regional Landscape Plan and various municipal urban plans [39]-can be a very dangerous weapon if we consider the limited number of Regional Landscape Plans written in accordance with D.Lgs 42/2004 that have been approved (i.e., the regions of Piemonte, Puglia, Toscana, Friuli-Venezia Giulia as well as Regione Sardegna on the coastline) [40][41][42]. Consequently, the experience gained in the field of conformity or adjustment to regional and municipal plans appears to be immature and largely experimental.…”

Regional landscape planning for the innovation of urban planning. Municipal implementation of the city-country pact in Apulia

“…The Cultural Heritage and Landscape Code, adopted in 2004 (henceforth Code), integrated the ELC while systematically incorporating previous legislation. The Code introduced a sweeping, interdisciplinary vision (Colavitti 2018) and significant innovation, embracing the foundations of the ELC, however, in a less incisive manner 3 due to the previously-described cultural context. It ascribes a central role to landscape planning, extending to entire Regions and addressing territorial matters in addition to landscape issues.…”

“…In this paper, the terms 'territory' and 'territorial' are used in a broader sense than commonly used in the English language. They refer to the combination of physical realities and spatial processes as well as socio-symbolic constructions(Debarbieux 1999).2 Colavitti provides a detailed reconstruction of this evolution, starting with pre-unification through the unification of Italy to the present day(Colavitti 2018).…”

Mind the Gap: Why the Landscape Planning System in Sardinia Does Not Work

“…For example, the RLP of Lombardy has been approved in 2010 without co-planning with the Ministry of Culture (MiC). In the case of the Regional Landscape Territorial Plan (RLTP) of Lazio, approved in 2019 by the region without taking into account the previous work and decisions shared at the joint technical table with the Ministry, the Council of Ministers has appealed to the Constitutional Court against the region for conflict of attribution, leading to the cancellation of the approval of the RLTP in October 2020 [18].…”

“…The framework of the landscape planning in the different Italian regions highlights a widespread delay in the drafting and approval process, as shown in the overview made available by the Ministry (December 2020). In 2004, most Italian regions already had a regional landscape plan covering the whole territory or a well-defined part of it, except for Calabria and Friuli Venezia Giulia [18].…”