The excellence in the Governance model for the Industrial Redevelopment of Venice.
Within a few years ago, the Industrial Area of Porto Marghera, with its 2,200 hectares along the board of the lagoon in front of the historic city of Venice, was one of the largest over polluted and, largely, decommissioned industrial area of Europe.
This Area is a mix of private properties, public land concessions both to private and public tenants.
Moreover, there is an overabundance of competent Administrations and Authorities: the Area is within the Port boundaries, which is inside the boundaries of the Site of National Interest, which is inside the Municipality of Venice, which is inside the Province of Venice, which is inside the Veneto Region.
Government, Region, Province, Municipality and Port Authority have independent and overlapping powers about the Territorial Planning and their powers can do nothing, without the will of the owners of the private land, to invest in industrial development.
Stakeholders have both complementary and conflicting interests and visions, that's why, in the nineties, nothing has been really effective against the industrial decommissioning of the Area that was, only two decades earlier, the most important in Europe for chemicals and polymers.
While the World was changing and the cost of energy was rising to unsustainable levels, compared to those of other Countries, the simple fact to be face to face to historic city of Venice was rising the cost of land to incompatible levels for industrial investments, legitimately feeding the hopes for real estate speculations of the land private owners and discouraging the bottom-up approach to lead the industrial redevelopment.
On the other hand, the Italian Government, facing the new issues of the European integration, of the Globalization and, at the same time, of the political commitment of assuring a certain degree of autonomy to Local Public Administrations, together with historic unresolved issues about the economic inhomogeneity of the Country, was able to allocate some resources useful to deal with environmental emergencies only.
In this Mexican standoff, where neither the top-down nor the bottom-up approach are effective to lead the industrial redevelopment, which kind of Governance can you possibly set up?
A third way was found, a Joint Negotiating and Consultative Committee (JNCC) and a Commissioner were the answer.
In Italy, Committees are used to be said are good assets if you want to go nowhere, but, surprisingly, not this time.
Somehow, the JNCC reproduced the unbelievable alchemy of the Italian political DNA, theorized by one of the founding fathers of the Italian Republic, Aldo Moro, that is the concept of the “Parallel Convergences”: one day, somebody points the finger to somewhere and everybody has to go there on its own.
The JNCC, with the name of “Permanent round table for Porto Marghera”, was established on 2006, just two years before the global economic crisis and, in spite of it, during these years, it attained achievements that were impossible during the 15 years before.
On 2006, the Port Authority was planning to push Venice as South Gate of Europe and was dreaming about a new concept of futuristic offshore terminal for large ocean-going cargo ships, combined to an inshore terminal for shuttle cargo barges, but it was complaining about the out of control costs of the land.
The Workers’ Unions were complaining about the out of control decommissioning of the Area, while the Trade Unions were complaining about the lack of competitiveness of infrastructures and for the out of control costs of energy.
Local Public Administrations were complaining about the lack of effective administrative tools and financial resources, while the People were complaining because the whole situation was out of control.
In spite of all this, everybody were conscious to be very close to the point of no return.
The director of “Venice Project” Department of Veneto Region took the lead and gathered all the local Public Administrations, the Workers’ Unions and the Trade Unions around a table with the objective to point out the strategies for the industrial redevelopment of the area and, just a few month later, the first Program Agreement was signed by all of them and the Ministry of Economic Development; thenceforth, round table became a permanent Joint Negotiating and Consultative Committee.
On 2013, The director of “Venice Project” Department was officially appointed as Special Commissioner, the JNCC produced the Project for Environmental Restoration and Industrial Redevelopment (PRRI), now ready to be signed by the Ministry of Economic Development, over 100 hectares are going to be made available for new investors, in the vision of innovative and sustainable industry, and the Port Authority is going to realize the new offshore and inshore terminals.
The weakest link of this model was the authorization process for the new investments.
the land remediation is up to investors, that’s not a problem, because its cost is offset by the higher value of the land; the problem is before you can proceed to the land remediation, you need to pass through the process of the environmental impact assessment (EIA).
The EIA tortuously involves all the local Public Administrations up to the Ministry of Environment, in a trail inspired by the Daedalus's maze; it could be a cost in terms of money, but, mostly, in terms of time.
That’s where the parallels converged: all the public administrations worked to streamline the procedures under their jurisdiction and the Commissioner worked to coordinate them, to help investors to have an easier process with less interlocutors; moreover, the reallocation of the 100 hectares will be managed by an Agency led by the Commissioner and the Municipality.
This model of Governance is a worldwide example of best practices and lessons learnt through years of experiences, failures and successes, and it is particularly valuable because is able to win against the legendary bureaucracy of Italy and the global economic crisis.
