In Barletta they are building a Lidl supermarket next to the Swabian Castle. And they are protesting

In Barletta, work started a few weeks ago on the construction of a Lidl supermarket that will rise next to the moat of Barletta Castle, a symbolic monument of the city (the current building is the result of various stratifications from the 11th to the 18th century): a large and imposing fortress that stands near the sea and is now home to the Municipal Library and the Civic Museum. The German chain’s store will rise right next to the monument, in place of an old building that used to be home to a food wholesaler. The old building has been torn down, and in its place will rise the new shed that will house the supermarket.

Given the area of urban and scenic value that will see the supermarket come into being (the Castello is located in Barletta’s marina), there has been a protest that is also being carried out by three members of the center-right majority on the city council, councilors Stella Mele, Luigi Rosario Antonucci, and Riccardo Memeo. “In the election campaign,” emphasize Mele, Antonucci and Memeo, “we have always argued that the back harbor area should have a strategic role in the city’s tourism development, so much so that this Administration, with City Council Resolution No. 43 of March 15, 2021, approved a project for intervention to cover the driveway in front of the Castle, in order to create the so-called ’harbor park.’ Nevertheless, with no small amount of amazement, we learned that the relevant offices of the City of Barletta have allowed the construction of a supermarket between the port and the Norman-Swabian Castle, subject to demolition of the existing building and construction of a new building. The affair preliminarily requires us to declare our opposition to what is happening in an area with a strong tourist vocation, with a very high landscape relevance, in the heart of the Barletta navy, set between the port, the sea, the moat of the Castle and the Cathedral.”

There are many points that the three councilors raise: first, the fact that the area already previously “raped the historical urban landscape in question,” and consequently needed to be redeveloped “in favor of the tourist development so legitimately longed for by the city.” The construction of a supermarket, on the contrary, only pursues the old logic. Secondly, the three councilors wonder if there are “correspondences with the urban planning instruments in force, since, as noted in the endoprocedural building act 18/2020, the property under construction would fall in the homogeneous zone of the General Regulatory Plan Area for Secondary Urbanizations, in which the establishment of a medium-sized M2 sales structure is not allowed.” Third, the councilors question whether the permits issued for the construction are in line with the regional regulation on “medium-sized commercial facilities,” and finally they wonder whether there is a landscape constraint on the area and therefore whether an environmental impact assessment should be submitted.

“In light of so much,” the councilors conclude, “we wonder if we are not running into an urban planning error, as well as an error of vision on the development of the City. We would not like, should our perplexities turn out to be well-founded, that someone from the Technical Office and Suap, erroneously interpreting laws and urban planning instruments, as has unfortunately happened in the past, confuse the intended use of a property with its urban destination, creating legitimate expectations in those who have asked for, and obtained, the aforementioned administrative authorizations, with the risk of causing damage to the Municipal Administration and the City of Barletta. Should this, unfortunately, ever happen, stern action must be taken without delay against those responsible for any damage to the City, stressing how much the vision of the future of the same and its development, must be the exclusive competence and responsibility of politics and not of others.”

Opposition councillors also expressed strong opposition to the project, and called for a single-issue council meeting on the supermarket project and the city plan. The mayor, Cosimo Cannito, expressed his position to the microphones of Amica TV: “I remind everyone, even those who have little memory,” he said, “that this is a management act and that it is private property that already pre-existed the protest movement that is rising in the city and that I share: but toward this type of structure the mayor cannot do anything. One should remember that private property is guaranteed by the Constitution of the Italian state. I have asked for clarification in writing from the executive, and as soon as the executive answers me (and of course he will answer me in great detail, confirming the legitimacy of that intervention, both from the urban planning aspect and from the procedural aspect) I will communicate to the city what I had from the executive.”

From what leaks out from the local press, it seems that Lidl has all the papers in order, at least with respect to the urban master plan. In addition, manager Donato Lamacchia sent a note to respond to the mayor, stating that the new intervention does not result in any transformation of the territory, because “it is configured as a building renovation through the demolition and reconstruction of the building existing there.” Still, the report says, “the property to be used for the exercise of the activity already possesses commercial use, as well as the availability of areas for pertinent parking.” Still, “the demolition and reconstruction work is implemented in compliance with the massing, contour, site area, elevations (or elevations), planivolumetric and typological characteristics, intended use and surface area of the previous one already granted, or in compliance with the technical parameters imposed for buildings subject to constraints.” Finally, the note notes that the building has obtained the landscape authorization of the Soprintendenza Archeologia, Belle Arti e Paesaggio of the provinces of Barletta-Andria-Trani and Foggia, the landscape authorization of the Municipal Landscape Service, the favorable opinion of the local Asl, the opinion of conformity of the planned interventions to current fire regulations, the Single Environmental Authorization and the Authorization in seismic zone issued by the Seismic Building Service of the Province of Barletta-Andria-Trani.

And, given that the intervention has all the credentials, there are now other issues of controversy as well, first and foremost theinadequacy of the city’s current zoning plan, as Councilman Carmine Doronzo of Civic Coalition notes: “I think this is the result of the lack of will to provide this city with an urban planning regulatory tool that is certain and definitive,” he tells Telesveva. “We have been saying loudly for years that Barletta needs a new general urban plan. In the absence of a general urban plan what is happening is what is happening, which is that politics does not intervene (guiltily) and technicians authorize things that the citizenry does not want.” Doronzo notes, however, that despite the fact that the intervention is entirely legitimate, it still stands in contrast to the administration’s oft-announced desire to preserve the area in terms of landscape. A controversy that is therefore open on several fronts. In short, the question is: the supermarket has the right credentials, but politically did it make sense to build it instead of using the area for other purposes? And in the meantime, construction work on Lidl’s new hyper goes on without too much regard for the presence of the Castle.

In the image, circled in red, is the spot where the supermarket will be built (in the satellite image you can see the old shed and the castle to the side)

In Barletta they are building a Lidl supermarket next to the Swabian Castle. And they are protesting

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