Disabled: the city that remains inaccessible in the endless wait for the Peba

For people with disabilities in Catania, there are no conditions to move freely among the over 53 square kilometers of urbanized areas (out of a total area of 183). This is due to the excessive architectural barriers and the lack of adaptation of many - too many - public buildings.

Looking at the bureaucratic aspect, the prerequisites are also missing: the Municipality has not yet approved the Peba, the Plan for the elimination of architectural barriers, an obligation introduced now 40 years ago, precisely with law number 41 of 1986.

This fact was recently highlighted by the Luca Coscioni Association, which conducted a survey consulting the institutional websites of the capitals across the Italian territory regarding the implementation of the regulation. Reading the report reveals that Catania, despite the absence of the Peba, is not alone. In fact, the Peba is also missing in the other eight capitals of the Island. Under Etna, the document is still being defined, thanks to the (won) appeals of the Coscioni association: the Regional Administrative Court of Sicily condemned the Municipality of Catania on May 12, 2025 for failing to comply. The administrative judge had given 45 days for the entity to act. Then, after the deadline passed in vain, the Tar in October appointed a commissioner ad acta - specifically the general secretary of the Metropolitan City of Messina - who will take care of its implementation.

However, Catania is not the worst-off capital city in Sicily. The association emphasizes that it has been unable to obtain updated information regarding the Peba process in Enna, Ragusa, Syracuse, and Trapani. The document appears to have a more advanced process, but is still not adopted, in Agrigento, which issued in 2021 the guidelines for starting a participatory process to map architectural barriers in the city, also activating a web portal for collecting reports. In Caltanissetta, the Peba process started in 2021, with a resolution from the municipal council informing the Coscioni Association that it was cataloging properties. In Messina, the Municipality assigned the task to an external professional in 2024, while in Palermo, also in 2024, the process began with a council resolution aimed at identifying priority areas and services for accessibility.

The national picture is not much more encouraging: only 43 capitals out of 118 monitored by the Coscioni Association currently have a Peba. This represents 36.4 percent of the total.