Stop the shopping center in front of the Catajo Castle: the Council of State says so

After two decades, the story of the project for a shopping center in front of the marvelous Castello del Catajo, a sumptuous mansion located in Battaglia Terme, in the heart of the Euganean Hills, a short distance from Padua, finally comes to a close. The idea dates back a long time but had begun to gain momentum in 2017, when the company that owns an area located near the castle, albeit in another municipality (Due Carrare), had started the process to build a 32-thousand-square-meter hypermarket (like five regulation soccer fields) a short distance from the monument (about a kilometer, to be exact), near the Terme Euganee highway exit on the A13 Padua-Bologna freeway. This had resulted first in a social campaign to avert the construction of the structure, and then in a legal battle that was eventually resolved with the Castle’s victory.

The Castle, as the Council of State recalled, is a monumental property protected by direct protective bond, affixed by separate orders of April 19, 1925, January 15, 1930, and April 13, 1964, the latter including not only the building but also the adjoining parks and adjacencies. In 2017, shortly after the resumption of the shopping center construction project, the Superintendence of Padua initiated the procedure for the affixing of an indirect protection constraint, which was subsequently adopted by the April 18, 2018 order of the Veneto Regional Commission for Cultural Heritage (Corepacu). The constraint affixed has an extent of about 3 square kilometers, and therefore also entails the linedification of the area where the company planned to build the commercial structure. The company, in 2018, had challenged the measure, appealing to the Veneto Regional Administrative Court (TAR) and finding irregularities in the process that had led to the affixing of the constraint on the area. The TAR, however, had dismissed the appeal, and the company appealed. It is now 2019, and following the appeal, MiBACT decided to join the lawsuit, flanked by a set of different parties (the People’s Committee Let Us Breathe, Confesercenti del Veneto Centrale and Confcommercio Imprese per lItalia, ASCOM Padova, Confagricoltura Padova, CIA Agricoltori Italiani, Padova, the Legambiente Onlus and Italia Nostra Associations, as well as Eurimmobiliare s.r.l.) who intended to oppose the appeal.

The case was dealt with in a public hearing last June 8, but the Council of State also proved the appellant company wrong. Jurisprudence, the ruling reads, has “clarified that the indirect constraint may be affixed in order to allow an understanding of the importance of the places in which the properties protected by the direct constraint are inserted through their almost complete preservation.” Moreover, “the administration’s assessment in the area in question is for the most part unquestionable, except in terms of the congruity and logicality of the reasoning and in particular for defect or manifest illogicality of the reasoning or error of fact.” And again, the ruling states, “the justification of the indirect constraint and its extension and incidence (the constraint was placed for an extension of about 3 km and entails the absolute constructability of the areas) appear consistent with the nature, characteristics and reasons for the protection of the monumental asset to which it is functional.” Again, “the Castle is linked by an inseparable relationship with the surrounding territory; more precisely, it should be emphasized that part of the artistic and architectural value of the monumental asset and its historical significance have been, since well before the imposition of the contested indirect constraint, also traced back to the active relationship that the Castle expresses in relation to the surrounding territory; this is worth justifying the particular invasiveness of the indirect protection measure imposed.” The indirect protection measure, explains the Council of State, “intends to preserve the peculiar characters of the environmental frame within which the cultural asset is located, of which there is a precise description in the contested measure, aiming to safeguard not only the perspective directions, which allow to appreciate its spatial insertion, but also the multiple visual cones enjoyable from the privileged viewpoints of the architectural complex, aiming to preserve the conditions of historical perspective and decorum.”

The company, among the various reasons for which it had appealed, had pointed out that an instrument of historical-artistic protection had been used for landscape protection: Palazzo Spada, however, noted that “the extension of the constraint does not find justification in the need to preserve the values of the territorial context in itself considered (albeit endowed with value), but rather the values that the same expresses in function of the cultural asset of the Catajo Castle and its appurtenances, to which it is inseparably related, as well evidenced by the passages of the technical reports referred to above.” Ultimately, the Council of State concludes, “the content of the contested constraint is in tune with the characteristics of the monumental asset to which it is functional. In other words, the power concretely exercised by the administration, which, as said, is an expression of technical discretion, does not appear unreasonable or illogical, finding instead its justification in the conservative need determined by the direct constraint, taking into account the peculiarities of the specific asset that is under consideration.” The company also complained about the violation of the principle of proportionality and the just sacrifice imposed on private property: a point on which the Constitutional Court had already expressed itself in 2020: “the building expectation of private individuals cannot [...] be considered an element capable of preventing the full implementation of the protection of the asset recognized as having environmental value.”

Great satisfaction from Castello del Catajo: “The ruling that puts the final stone on the dastardly project to build a shopping center in front of Castello del Catajo has just arrived,” they write on their Facebook page. “Today is the best day in our history! We are relieved and happy because the value of preserving such a precious historical asset and its wonderful landscape has been affirmed. Sergio Cervee and all the staff of the castle thank all the people who have been fighting for the protection of the land over the years, the Superintendence, the Ministry of Cultural Heritage, all the trade associations and environmental associations, a big hug to the La Nostra Terra committee and the citizens all who supported us. Thank you!”

Stop the shopping center in front of the Catajo Castle: the Council of State says so

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