InvestEU: agreement signed between the Municipality of Verona and CDP

Summary

MoU signed by the two institutions: Cassa Depositi e Prestiti will offer advisory services to the municipal administration for the development of social housing projects

Support for a programme dedicated to the construction of sustainable, modern and inclusive housing to meet the specific needs of low-income households, university students and senior citizens. This is the objective of the Memorandum of Understanding signed by the Municipality of Verona and Cassa Depositi e Prestiti.

The collaboration initiated between the municipal administration and CDP focuses on the desire to promote the development of Social, Student and Senior Housing by stimulating cooperation between public institutions and the private sector, and will have the goal of providing assistance, consultancy and technical-operational support in order to facilitate projects that benefit the community and the local fabric. All this can be achieved thanks to the resources made available by the European Union as part of the InvestEU Programme and by CDP itself.

In detail, as part of the 2022-2027 Operational Guidelines that defined strategic priorities and objectives for a new idea of a welcoming, hospitable city with a vocation for social cohesion, and based on the provisions of the Single Programming Document (SPD), the Municipality of Verona intends to set up a planning process focused on social and sustainable housing infrastructure.

As envisaged in the agreement, in its role as Advisory Partner of the European Commission CDP will offer local authorities its technical advice to identify national and international best practices in the field of urban planning, and prepare economic and financial sustainability analyses aimed at developing technical-economic feasibility models and parameters for the launching of public or private urban regeneration projects for the promotion and implementation of social housing initiatives.

Barbara Bissoli, Deputy Mayor and Councillor for Urban Planning of the Municipality of Verona, stated: "One of the strategic horizons that the new Municipal Zoning Plan being developed intends to address is based on the regeneration of the existing building stock for a sustainable, attractive and accessible city. Working for a city with these characteristics means addressing social issues and the needs of the economic sector, in particular by attracting a working-age population and finding solutions to the challenge of housing that is more fair and inclusive. The ability of a city to attract new inhabitants is directly linked to the availability of good housing in a variety of types and lifestyles: workers in companies and services, student housing, young people to be retained, new forms of living for the elderly. The agreement reached is a great opportunity for the Municipality of Verona, and we are very grateful to Cassa Depositi e Prestiti, which, sharing the urban planning policies outlined by this Administration in its guidelines, has proposed this collaboration. In fact, CDP's advice and assistance will allow us to give substance to the strategies that we are outlining in our Preliminary Local Plan, pursuing and encouraging projects related to the sustainable social infrastructure of housing, with specific reference to social infrastructure, that is, affordable social housing and student housing".

Luisa Ceni, Councillor for Housing Policies of the Municipality of Verona, added: "This initiative is also one of those that we are pursuing as the Department of Housing Policies, which will of course also support the municipality’s social policies. We are working in synergy with other departments, and this allows us to work more effectively to provide the answers we need to give to the public. This new collaboration facilitates this process, with an innovative approach to issues that are currently extremely pressing throughout the municipality and province of Verona, but also nationally and at a European level”.

Maria Elena Perretti, Advisory Manager at CDP, remarked: "The agreement signed today, with the support of the InvestEU Programme, allows Cassa Depositi e Prestiti to support the Municipality of Verona in a strategic initiative aimed at carrying out substantial urban regeneration projects focused on low-income households, university students and the elderly. An undertaking of great value with a significant social and environmental impact that we are happy to accompany by making all our best skills available to the local community”.