The activists of the Alta Tensione Abitativa campaign awarded the administration with a “Lion with its tail between its legs”. “An historic opportunity masterfully avoided”. The group’s proposal for a national law was relaunched afterwards at Rialto.
It was a symbolic and ironic action, but full of political value, organized today at Ca’ Farsetti by the activists of Alta Tensione Abitativa, a group founded in 2022 which has developed a bill for the regulation of tourist rentals. Furthermore, with the debate this has generated the group has contributed, among other things, to Parliament’s unanimous approval of the “Pellicani” amendment (named for the Democratic Party senator who proposed the amendment) in July 2022, which allowed Venice – the only case in Italy, both at the time and still today – to establish a municipal regulation that places limits and rules on tourist rentals.
On Friday April 12, at 4pm, around twenty activists met in front of the offices of the Municipality – access to Ca’ Farsetti was only granted to a delegation of two people – to mark the 600 days that have passed since the approval of the Pellicani amendment without the Venice council publishing any such regulation, despite several announcements in this regard. “The free assembly of resident citizens or, to their detriment, of non-residents” in Venice, goes the statement of the self-proclaimed “jury” read in front of Ca’ Farsetti, recognizes the Mayor and the Council for “the incredible merit of having avoided the historical opportunity” to intervene and address the imbalance between houses intended for residence and houses intended for tourism.
For the activists, there is no doubt about the precision and will “with which, for over 600 days, the winners of our award have managed to not implement any regulation on the matter at all, while continuing to boast of wanting to do so or having already (almost) done so”. According to them, this confirms how the Council is subordinate to the “powers that weigh on the city, every day marking more of a demographic, cultural and civic crisis that the whole world recognizes as shameful and serious”.
The chosen prize, an ironic “Lion with its tail between its legs”, was then delivered to the mayor’s secretary by a delegation of two people, in the absence of journalists, by choice of the mayor’s cabinet. In this regard, Ca’ Farsetti made it known that the request from Alta Tensione Abitativa to deliver “a communication relating to its action on the regulation of tourist rentals in the city of Venice” concerned a delegation, and this way of operating was agreed upon with them in the shortest possible way. By specific request, the official who received the delegation denied consent to be filmed, in full compliance with the Institution’s Code of Conduct that apply when carrying out his activities.
Source: Venezia Today
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