How to support policy decisions by combining public and private interests. The re-use of abandoned cultural heritage in Northern Italy.

Built cultural heritage (BCH) preservation has to be based on rigorous methodological frameworks able to find a balance among protection instances, economic development and urban quality. The research is focused on the definition of decision aiding process for the reuse of an abandoned healthcare facility with several historic buildings. Public and private different needs have been taken into consideration, since both play an important role for the development of the analysed area and for definition of urban regeneration policies. Given the complexity of this issue, the evaluation process has been structured by combining different methodologies to support the policy cycle: i) the Stakeholder Analysis, that has allowed to identify actors engaged and to prioritize their needs (Social sustainability), ii) the Nara Grid for the values elicitation of the BCH (Cultural and environmental sustainability) and the subsequent definition of different sustainable scenarios; iii) Discounted Cash Flow Analysis (Economic sustainability). Four alternatives, in addition to the business as usual scenario, have been evaluated with the support of a Multicriteria Analysis aimed at defining the most balanced between heritage significance retention and urban regeneration. This work contributes to the literature on soft OR by exploring the interactions among different stakeholders and addresses policy instances by providing a transparent methodology based on the value elicitation.