Common Property in Italy. Unresolved Issues and an Appraisal Approach: Towards a Definition of Environmental-Economic Civic Value

Abstract

Common property represents a particularly topical and complex issue in Italy due to the widespread (10% of) Italian territory, with millions of buildings built on it and the lack of a clear legal status regarding their alienability and eliminability. Usually known as civic uses, these rights include various forms of collective enjoyment that are recognized by the Italian legal system, such as grazing; hunting; and the right to fell timber, gather firewood, and sow crops. A recent legislative initiative overcame the concept of “eliminating” civic use by introducing the concept of “exchange”, but the unique indication given by the law on how to operate the exchange established the equivalence of the environmental value of the land subject to exchange itself. In the present article, the characteristics of the environmental value or Environmental–Economic Civic Value of land subject to exchange are defined. Consequently, appropriate evaluation procedures/models that could be adopted for ascertaining the environmental value of areas encumbered by civic use that are to be exchanged are identified, considering the different territorial conditions of the presence of civic uses and land areas (land currently encumbered/the land to be encumbered) where an exchange can take place.