Modica, stop to urban discrimination

Modica, urgent address motion for the new PUG: stop to "partial planning" and a race for regional funds. Putting an end to a "partial planning" that has hindered balanced development of the city for years and penalized neighborhoods and districts: this is the objective at the center of the urgent address motion presented by the opposition and independent municipal councilors (Siamo Modica, DC and Radici Iblee), with Paolo Nigro as the first signatory.

The measure formally commits the Mayor and the Council to promptly initiate the process for drafting the new General Urban Planning (PUG), deemed essential to overcome the structural limitations of the old PRG approved in 2017.

According to the proponents, the current arrangement is marked by profound inequity resulting from the regional decree that, in 2017, only partially approved the original plan, concentrating building and development areas almost exclusively on Modica Sorda, in certain portions of the Historic Center and in the Michelica artisan zone.

“The exclusion of fundamental areas such as B2, B3, and the areas for tourist and industrial expansion has created a real territorial discrimination,” the councilors state. “Entire areas like Modica Alta, Frigintini, Montesano, Zappulla, S. Filippo, Marina di Modica, and Maganuco have been unjustly blocked in their growth.”

A situation made even more critical today by the decay of the preordained expropriation constraints, which leaves the city unable to adequately respond to contemporary socio-economic needs.

The motion, the signatories emphasize, is also an act of administrative pragmatism. On March 16, the Regional Department of Territory and Environment issued Decree No. 46, which provides non-repayable contributions for municipalities engaged in drafting new urban planning tools. For Modica, the potential allocation is 55 thousand euros, but the deadlines are very tight: the application must be submitted within 30 days from the publication of the decree in the Official Gazette of the Sicilian Region (G.U.R.S.).

With the vote of the Chamber, the proponents request that the administration intervene on three fronts:

- Official start of the process for the PUG, pursuant to Regional Law 19/2020.

- Drafting of the guidelines for the new plan.

- Submission of the application for regional funding, to avoid losing available resources.

"Unite the city, not divide it"

The signatories conclude with a call for institutional and civic cohesion: "Urban planning is an exclusive prerogative of the City Council. It is a topic that should unite rather than divide, in the greater interest of a modern, orderly, and sustainable Modica, which finally ensures equity from the center to the outskirts."