Campaign For A Living Venice

“What we are witnessing is the selloff of the family jewels” – Marco Gasparinetti

What follows is a message from Gruppo 25 Aprile following the approval the sale of Palazzo Poerio Papadopoli, once an important school in Venice, to become yet another hotel.

From Santa Fosca to the Papadopoli, the City is not a Monopoly

Today the City Council approved, with 20 votes for and 7 against, the zoning variation to allow the transformation of the Palazzo Poerio Papadopoli into a hotel, yet another completely unnecessary injury to a City which has been subjected to many.

“There is nothing to discuss,” admonished Saverio Centenaro, who presided over the meeting, as if the City Councilors were mere ornaments. Gruppo 25 Aprile thanks those who instead sparked a lively debate full of points and who have opened our eyes to the true intentions of the City government, so far from their election promises

Tuesday November 21 at 16:00 we will gather will all who wish to join us for a group march from Campo Santa Fosca to Papadopoli Gardens, where the Casa del Custode has already been sold by the City to the neighboring hotel (bid on ferragosto, with only one offer). With this next sale all that will be missing in this “gateway of Venice” will be the installation of a drawbridge and requiring a toll to cross it.

As citizens we denounce this vicious circle, and we will try to break it with the sound of pots and pans, as we do in Venice on San Martino day – which is also synonymous with moving.

To those who are authorizing new hotel beds at the pace of 2000 per year we ask: do we really need more hotels in Venice? The 2015 tourism census counted 401 hotels for a total of almost 30,000 beds and 3,352 non-hotel tourist lodgings (almost 1,000 more than in 2011) for a total of an additional 20,000 beds.

In 2015, then, there were 50,503 beds available for tourist use – without counting those rented “off books”. From the 96 Bed and Breakfasts registered in the year 2000, we have reached 3,128 advertised on Airbnb.com at Venice in 2015 (source: Reset), which has led ItaliaNostra to estimate the actual total at close to 6,000 (source: ItaliaNostra, “Proposals for Venice”). From 96 to 3,128 (or perhaps 6,000) in 15 years.

The date is 21 November at 16:00, in Campo Santa Fosca: where two months ago we discovered the “secrets” of a canonica transformed in to a hotel, without a building license and without even the beginning of the restoration work to the neighboring Church, which had been presented as “counterparts” a year ago.

–Gruppo 25 Aprile,

16 November 2017

VENICE