On behalf of the Piazza d’Armi Citizens’ Committee, accompanied by 86 signatures, to prohibit construction within an urban green space 

The petitioner is seeking to conserve 35 hectares of green space in the Piazza d’Armi area, which forms a natural oasis in the city of Milan. In 2016, ownership of this area was handed over from the Ministry of Defence to the Ministry of Economy and Finance. The latter, via a real estate management company, has put it up for sale, mentioning in the call for tenders that the buyer(s) may have the opportunity to build around four thousand homes, on a designated residential zone, as well as tertiary and commercial buildings as per the city’s urban planning regulation This transformation project also envisages demolishing military buildings of historic and architectural value. The committee underlines the intrinsic qualities of this green space, which constitutes a unique ecosystem (containing broadleaf woodland, wetland and vegetable gardens) that is crucial for the groundwater levelin the city. It also provides worrying estimates (sourced from the 2016 ISPRA report on ‘Soil depletion, land dynamics and ecosystemic services’) about the loss of ecosystemic services due to overbuilding. Furthermore, the committee draws attention to the impact that construction would have on the flora and fauna living in the wetland, especially on migratory birds and amphibians, which include 39 species of avifauna protected under Directive 2009/147/EC (the Birds Directive) and under Directive 92/43/EEC (the Habitats Directive). It also stresses the stopgap effect that Piazza d’Armi has on air pollution in and around Milan, thanks to its wooded area measuring the equivalent of 50 football fields (in this regard, the Milan metropolitan area continuously breaches the EU’s daily and annual limit values for the concentration of both particulate matter (PM10) and nitrogen dioxide (NO2)). Finally, the petitioners cite the historical and anthropological value of Piazza d’Armi, particularly the agricultural activity and the related landscape constraints, as well as the local awareness-raising conservation campaigns led by the Fondo Ambiente Italiano [Italian Environment Fund] in 2017. All of these points support the argument for creating a large public park where the entire Piazza d’Armi green space and wooded area can be conserved as a ‘natural capital of biodiversity’.