L'urbanistica che cambia. Mercato dei diritti edificatori, governo del territorio ed uso del suolo.

The thesis investigates the evolution of market-oriented approaches in the urban planning framework. These approaches are based on neo-liberal principles of market self-regulation and designed to bypass the unfairness and the ineffectiveness of the traditional zoning regulation and the rational-comprehensive plan. The main objective is to evaluate the potentiality of market-based instruments in relation to specific goals, as urban growth control and urban renewal, shared at national and European level. In particular, the work is focused on international experiences of development rights transfer aimed mainly at environmental protection. In the national context, it analyzes the various applications of urban equalization in the municipal plans, disciplined differently in regional legislations, and the recent experimentations of more flexible forms of development rights transfer or even free marketability of development capacity. This mechanism is founded on the separation of the development right from the ownership of land. It has legal autonomy and therefore it can be assegned or gained by different stakeholders according to the conditions defined by public administrations. Development rights can be used by local authorities, as non-financial compensation, to pursue different kind of objectives: free land acquisition, environmental preservation, historical and cultural resources protection, energy save incentives, urban renewal, land-take reduction, infrastructures and services realization. Based on a survey of market-based instruments used by urban planning in the international context, the thesis analyzes the Italian forms of equalization and non-financial compensation and rewards in relation to the criteria of effectiveness, efficiency, equity and transparency. The identification of various critical issues (legal, estimative and urban planning issues) allowed to advance proposals aimed at improving the effectiveness and fairness of the urban planning tools. Urban equalization and non-financial compensation tools, supporting the municipal plan or independent from its, generate development rights of different types that differ also for their legal protection. Development rights granted as compensation, for example in order to acquire an area, must be protected by the administration which has to ensure the chance of a real urban development. This right protection imposes a constraint to the urban plan revision, according to new arising community needs. The recent national law (L. 70/2011), aimed at regulating the contractual scheme of "development rights transfer", impose to register every contract that create, transfer or modify development rights ownership. It does not appear sufficient to go beyond the many critical issues although contributes to greater certainty in the assignment and circulation of development rights. The final section of the thesis studies a case sample in Sardinia Region, the metropolitan area of Cagliari, a context interested by urban sprawl and land-take processes. The analysis of the municipal plans highlights an overestimation of development capacity needs and a first attempt to use flexible and consensual approaches. Finally the research discusses the proposal of a planning law for the national territorial government and the urban planning regional reform. The discussion of the results highlights the possibility to use a market-oriented approach and the transfer of development rights. They support municipal planning instruments and integrate regulative and command and control measures in order to achieve specific aims such as urban sprawl control, urban renewal, historical centers conservation and collective services system supply.