Suitable Areas, the No is in the hands of the Mayors

The letter is dated August 24. The hands of the electronic protocol of the Region mark 19:38. The shipment is multiple. The recipients are the 377 Municipalities of Sardinia. The day is Saturday, the eve of the Redeemer. He, the regional councilor for Urban Planning, Francesco Spanedda, acting as President of the Region, is keen to let it be known that on the eve of the fourth Holy Sunday of August he is working.

And he also writes: «Despite the closure period for the summer holidays, many of us have continued to work on the law on suitable and unsuitable areas». The communication that the Sardinian Mayors found on their desks yesterday morning, however, is much more than a bureaucratic letter. In short, the executive representative is attempting a difficult operation: forcing the mayors to leave their fingerprints on the identification of «suitable and unsuitable areas».

The confession

With the letter we are publishing, the Region is forced to admit two key passages on the legislative level, all contained in the subject of the letter: «Definition of suitable areas pursuant to Legislative Decree 199/2021 and Ministerial Decree 236/2024». With these two regulatory references, two theses that have been waved as "salvific" up to now are effectively dismantled. The first theory that blows up is the one that would have seen the Region "free" to decide the suitable areas: this is not the case, obviously.

It is the same councilor who writes it: those areas must be identified pursuant to Legislative Decree 119/2021, or the Draghi Decree. The second theory that is denied is that in past years time has been wasted by not indicating the "suitable areas". In reality, it is the regional letter itself that denies that assumption: "The regional administration, with the involvement of local authorities, within 180 days of the entry into force of Ministerial Decree 236/2024, must proceed to identify the unsuitable areas in which it will not be possible to install energy systems from renewable sources".

Or, to be clearer, it was the agreement signed by the Region last June that triggered those 180 days, putting Sardinia under the grip of a state imposition that had never been triggered until then. In the letter from the assessor, sent to the Municipalities, confusion, both substantial and lexical, reigns supreme : throughout the text, in fact, it is repeatedly claimed that the ministerial decree gives the Region the mandate to "define the areas not suitable pursuant to Ministerial Decree 236/2024", when, instead, that provision explicitly speaks of "definition of suitable areas".

The "serial email", however, contains a passage that is as ambiguous as it is equivocal : "To define the unsuitable areas, Ministerial Decree 236/2024 requires us to define territorial details that only municipal administrations are able to provide, especially within the time limits imposed by the ministerial decree." In essence, without ever saying what these "territorial details" would be, the Region is attempting an operation aimed entirely at having the Municipalities "stamp the clock" of participation, so as to be able to declare that they have been involved, at least formally, in the decision-making process. One element appears clear: the Region was very careful not to define a specific procedure for involving the mayors and the Municipal Councils themselves in the definition of the phantom suitable areas.

Indeed, in the apparently "winking" letter, with a confidential "you" addressed to the Mayors, the councilor announces that the involvement operation will not only be a merely "formal" step, but will not even have time for a proper invitation. The councilor writes: "We apologize for the short notice with which you will receive the invitation but, in the interest of your community and the entire regional territory, we ask you to make an effort to guarantee participation". In short, the fate of the landscape and the future of Sardinia is being decided and the modality will be that of an "invitation to the bar".

That the announced "last minute meetings" will not have a clear agenda is clear from the content of the "twenty lines" that the Regional Palace sent to the Municipalities. The meetings, writes the region, are called "to provide local administrations with the information needed to define the details of the areas and their qualification, you will shortly receive an invitation to participate in the territorial meetings that we will hold in various municipalities". In the first paragraph, however, it was the Municipalities called to provide "the territorial details", in the next one, however, the exact opposite is discovered: it is the Region that is applying to provide "the information needed to define the details of the areas". It is at this stage, however, that a real "transparency operation" could be unleashed with the Municipalities called to anticipate the Region with their own deliberative acts in which they declare the availability or otherwise of "suitable areas" in their municipal territory.

The Power of the Municipalities

If the Municipalities were to indicate, for example, the unavailability of suitable areas, a certain rule would be imposed with respect to a regional path that has so far been undefined, confused and ambiguous, with the risk of territorial meetings that function only to register attendance and make the Mayors "co-responsible" for the definition of "suitable areas".

On the one hand, the Region seems to want to "frame" the Municipalities in the definition of "suitable areas", but on the other hand, it would like the participation of local authorities to be only a "proforma". It is for this reason that the declaration of "Municipality No Suitable Areas" would not only be a political act, but would become a resolution based on the content of regional provisions that have already certified an emblematic fact: 98.8 percent of the regional territory is "unsuitable" for the wind and photovoltaic assault. Now the Mayors could find themselves at a crossroads: endorse the choices of the Region or declare that in their municipalities there are no "suitable areas". The citizens are waiting.