Short-term rentals, the green light from the Tuscany TAR: the rule lapses

Stella: "The TAR ruling represents a victory for Forza Italia"

by Carlandrea Poli and Diego Giorgi

ROME – The appeal by property owners against the resolutions of the Municipality of Florence which limit short-term tourist rentals in the centre, in the UNESCO area, is inadmissible, but for the administration it is not good news. The first section of the Tuscany TAR with a sentence published in these hours declares the dispute to be effectively over, since every complaint was absorbed with the approval by the Municipality of the operational plan which removed from the urban planning regulation the rule which introduces bans on short-term rentals, which is instead contained in the variant to the urban planning regulation. The final product is that the administration does not succumb, but sees itself recognized in black and white by the robes of the administrative tribunal that the relevant provisions are no longer in force because the operational plan is authentic. The judges, using technical but surgical language, explain that the objectives of combating tourist overcrowding contained in the urban planning variant which is the object of the challenge by the appellants “are no longer current” or no longer in force due to “the subsequent approval of the plan operational plan that does not contain themWhatever the reasons, the removal from the operational plan of the ban on short-term tourist rentals ends up resulting in a noticeable misalignment between the safeguard measures originating from the adoption of the variant to the urban planning regulation. and the choices made by the Municipality with the approval of the operational plan, in the sense that the former are not consistent with the latter, nor functional to them”. Logically, therefore, “it must be excluded that the safeguard measures of the variant for which the same justifying reason has ceased to survive”.

Moreover, the contradiction between the two planning tools cannot be resolved, as motivated instead by Palazzo Vecchio, believing that the new operational plan is not yet effective, because in a systematic logic the criterion of temporal succession applies: that is, it is the most recently approved instrument is effective. The judges push this observation to its extreme consequences: “Precisely by virtue of this criterion – writes the TAR – it must be excluded that the defendant administration, after having approved the operational plan, can still proceed with the approval of a variant to the urban planning regulation partially here definitively superseded by the new planning”. And this not only because on a substantive level the variant could not contradict the operational plan, but because the approval of the plan itself puts the variant process on a dead end. Furthermore, the amendment to the operational plan wanted by the then mayor Dario Nardella who expressed the intention to reintroduce the regulation on short-term rentals once the variant to the urban planning regulation had been definitively approved because, they still point out, also received little appreciation. the robes in a passage that sounds like a stick, “this at most expresses a hope for the future, while the reasons for the excerpt attribute an improper exploratory function to the variant”. 

SHORT RENTALS, STELLA: “SENTENZA TAR IS VITTORIA OF FORZA ITALIA“

“We can say it clearly and loudly, without fear of contradiction: the ruling of the TAR of Tuscany on the appeal against the resolution of the Municipality of Florence which had stopped short-term tourist rentals, is a victory for Forza Italia, which since first began to defend private property, which is sacred to us.” The first to rejoice is the Tuscan blue coordinator and group leader of Fi in the regional council, Marco Stella. “There is a Soviet influence in this measure, which we have always said we wanted to erase. Today is a great day for those who believe in freedom.” For this reason “we thank the Tagliaferri law firm for helping us in this battle from a legal point of view, and the citizens who followed us by joining the appeal”. Private property, he continues, “is inviolable even when we talk about rent”. Furthermore, “short-term rentals are one of the last remaining social safety nets. In Florence they involve 30,000 people, with a turnover of 2 billion. Not to mention that with these flows we have a tourist tax that can bring in 70 million per year“. Now, he warns, “we must extend the battle to Tuscany, given that the proposed amendment to the Consolidated Tourism Act contemplates the possibility for municipalities with the highest tourist density to identify, in agreement with the Region, zones or areas in which to define criteria and limits for carrying out short-term rental activities of properties for tourism purposes”. Translated, he observes, “new limitations for short-term tourist rentals. Instead of seriously addressing the phenomenon of the housing emergency, the only solution is to prohibit tourist rentals: I wonder if we should expect the proletarian expropriation of private homes “.