Finanziamenti post sisma per edifici a destinazione pubblica: esperienze di partenariato pubblico-privato nel contesto aquilano

A decree recently issued by the Special Government Commissioner for Post-Earthquake Reconstruction in the Municipalities located in the Regions of Abruzzo, Lazio, Marche, and Umbria, sets guidelines for the funding of works on public buildings destroyed or damaged by seismic events, which must be implemented by means of public-private partnership operations. Therefore, it devotes special attention to the adoption of contracts contemplating some collaboration between public and private entities and aimed at developing conservation and valorization activities on public buildings, and demands that lessons learnt from similar, previous experiences be heeded. The restoration of the Basilica of S. Maria di Collemaggio in L’Aquila, for example, was funded by virtue of a technical sponsorship, with a private sector institution actively cooperating with public authorities throughout the design and execution stages. On the one hand, the Municipality of L’Aquila obtained the relevant benefit of the Basilica’s restoration at no cost. For its part, the private sector institution benefited from it in terms of image, and probably even participated in the initiative in the light of political and social accountability considerations. Since private bodies involved in sponsorship initiatives typically fail to allocate any dedicated budget to the management stage of the process, we ought to turn our attention to further partnership tools, such as concessions, which do indeed allow for profit and non-profit entities to ensure preventive and planned conservation and valorization activities on a long-term basis.