Landscaping San Antonio: what changes compared to the past

The Landscaping San Antonio rewrites the procedures for the issuance of simplified landscape authorization, expands the building activities free from authorization and speeds up the procedural process thanks to the unified models for the submission of applications. On the other hand, it does not introduce any new features on the ordinary landscape authorization front.

Landscaping San Antonio: what it is and how it works

Landscaping San Antonio, regulated by the Cultural Heritage Code ( Legislative Decree 42/2004 ), is mandatory for interventions in areas subject to landscape protection and must be requested from the competent body so that the landscape compatibility of the intervention is ascertained  .

Depending on the intervention that is undertaken, it will be possible to resort to three different procedures:
- free intervention : without the obligation of landscape authorization but only the request for the building permit (when needed);
- simplified landscape authorization  with unified models and procedural process to be completed within a maximum period of 60 days;
-ordinary landscape authorization : for significant interventions and with a longer procedural process (up to a maximum of 120 days).

Those who intend to carry out the work, after having verified the type of authorization required, must submit to the competent administrations the project of the interventions they intend to undertake, accompanied by the required documentation.

The authorization is effective for a period of five years , after which the execution of the works must be subject to a new authorization. If the works have begun during the five-year period of effectiveness of the authorization, they can be concluded no later than the year following the expiry of the five-year period.

Interventions not subject to Landscaping San Antonio

Already the Legislative Decree 42/2004 provided that the Landscaping San Antonio was not necessary for small and limited interventions that were limited to the following cases:
- ordinary and extraordinary maintenance interventions, static consolidation and conservative restoration without altering the state of the places and the external appearance of buildings;
- interventions relating to the exercise of agro-forestry-pastoral activity that do not involve permanent alteration of the state of the places;
- crop cutting, forestation, reforestation, reclamation, fire prevention and conservation works to be carried out in the woods and forests.

From 6 April there will be 31 free interventions , including works that in the Presidential Decree 139/2010 (now repealed) were part of the simplified procedure such as the insertion of removable elements and the installation of awnings, platforms, shading elements, placed in support of economic or tourist-accommodation activities.

Among the free interventions there are also internal works  that modify the intended use but do not alter the external appearance of the buildings, interventions on the elevations and roofs that respect the color plan, the creation of external openings and roof windows, interventions of  static consolidation  of the buildings (if they do not change the volume, height, etc.), interventions for the elimination of  architectural barriers , installation of  solar panels on flat roofs not visible from the outside, installation of  awnings  on terraces or private appurtenant spaces and faithful reconstruction  of buildings destroyed after natural disasters.