Campaign For A Living Venice

Rents, Tourism, Separation: three hundred at the Ateneo thinking of 2020

25 Aprile, associations, councilors. “The seventh sestiere are the Venetians living out of the city”

A stop to tourist rentals over residential, a ban on the change of use of property, a program for the management and limiting of mass tourism, the creation of skilled jobs, a plan for reorganizing water traffic. These are the principal proposals of the 20 presented yesterday at the Ateneo Veneto by Gruppo 25 Aprile, the result of months of meetings and hearings in the sestieri. “It is a series of proposals which are concrete, realizable and realistic to put in practice immediately,” said spokesman Marco Gasparinetti. “The rest is material for a program of governance for those who wish to run in the next elections.” It was this sense that permeated the hall last night at Ateneo Veneto, crowded by over 300 people: there were some who were not able to get in. In the hall were City Councilors – Monica Sambo (PD), Davide Scano and Sara Visman (Cinquestelle), attending as an individual Maurizio Crovato (Fuscia, Brugnaro) – President and Vice President of the Municipality of Venice Giovanni Martini and Anna Messinis, and many associations among which were Venezia Cambia, Italia Nostra, WSM, Forum Arsenale,  and the citizens’ committees of Rialto and Sant’Angelo.

“The UNESCO resolution of last July was an opportunity to catalyze international attention on the requests that the citizens have made for some time, and the deadline of February 1 has quickened the pace,” said Gasparinetti. “It is a shame that Mayor Luigi Brugnaro did not accept our invitation and that he did not send any delegate.” Gruppo 25 Aprile has asked that the meeting with Brugnaro at UNESCO next Tuesday be live streamed over the Internet or otherwise furnish immediate access to the content of the meeting. City Councilors Monica Sambo and Giovanni Pelizzato (Lista Casson) spoke about UNESCO as well, saying that the mayor never presented the package of proposals that he will bring to UNESCO to the City Council. “In Venice,” continued Gasparinetti, “there is a seventh sestiere, and these are the 12,300 Venetians who have moved out of the city. Without skilled jobs it is impossible to pay the rents and high costs.”

The principal politicians each spoke, explaining what, in their view, were the most urgent needs for the city. For Jacopo Berti (head of the Cinquestelle in the Regional Council) the priorities were support for a referendum for the separation of Venice and Mestre, the modification of the 2013 law that deregulated B and Bs, and to have ARPAV install new monitoring equipment to monitor the air quality in the city. “The situation in the city is one of dramatic decline,” said Gian Angelo Bellati, as a resident of San Marco, “the solution is an autonomous Venice with a government that is capable of keeping the residual taxes. We need parking spaces, residences at accessible prices, the return of economic activity and perhaps make the Arsenale in to a kind of Cine-City.” The head of the PD in the City Council, Andrea Ferrazzi, among the speakers, emphasized the urban theme. “Change of use of homes should be banned… there needs to be a process against illegal rentals.” From her experience as a teacher at Fermi, Nicoletta Frosini recalled the young in the city: “In Venice we have 86 schools of every level and grade for 13,354 students. While in the primary schools the students are 9% of those in the region, in the upper grades that goes up to 24%, a sign of attractiveness. Two out of three young people want a future in Venice but don’t see one because there are no jobs.” Finally Nevio Oselladore spoke for the Comitato Lavoratori Navigazione ACTV, who stressed the urgency of a traffic plan for water navigation to avoid accidents.

-Source: Corriere Del Veneto, Jan. 21, 2017