The possible conversion to maxi-yachting of the areas overlooking the Calafati and Pisa Docks in Livorno, currently dedicated to small and medium-sized shipbuilding, is legitimate according to the Regional Administrative Court (TAR) of Florence.
The judges, in fact, declared the appeals by the Lorenzoni Shipyard, which had opposed from the start the idea of the Port System Authority, supported by a Rina study, to create a shipyard for the construction of mega yachts in place of the facilities of the current concession holders, to be inadmissible and in any case rejected on the merits. This was to be done following a temporary reorganization of the existing concessions to align with the longest expiry date (mid-2026, that of Lorenzoni itself) and following a specific functional technical adaptation (adopted, it is now learned from the ruling, in November 2024 by the Management Committee).
The judges first dismantled Lorenzoni’s argument that the intended use of the areas would conflict with that provided for by the Port Master Plan (Prp), since “the Rina Industrial Plan (…) does not at all foresee the location of minor shipbuilding activities attributable to the IA-2 function (which is unequivocally not permitted within the Calafati dock); as ‘ship’ must be understood a vessel of any nature (military, commercial, and also pleasure, i.e., mega-yachts) with a length exceeding 24 meters.”
Furthermore, the judges wrote regarding the alleged provision of the Prp to allocate those areas to commercial uses after the relocation of the currently present shipyards, “the shipbuilding activities provided for in technical sheet no. 3 of the Prp (Forest Products Port Area) are not defined there as temporary and transitional functions; rather, they, as existing at the time of the Prp in the areas of the Pisa Dock and the Calafati Dock, will continue to remain and this, without a predetermined termination limit or a pre-established or a priori imposed duration. It is only provided, in entirely hypothetical terms, that in the event such business realities were relocated to other areas of the port, the surfaces thus freed would be used for the handling of forest product traffic; no priority is therefore assigned to one function or the other.”
Therefore, “the objective of converting the areas of the Calafati Dock to the high-end pleasure boating sector outlined in the Rina Plan thus appears abstractly compatible with the strategic choices of the Prp, falling then within the scope of the administration’s broad discretion the possibility of remodulating the particular type of activities that can be carried out in these areas within the permitted function IA-1, of ship repair, maintenance, conversion, construction, and outfitting.”
The appeal for additional grounds against the Functional Technical Adaptation (Atf) was also inadmissible and unfounded, since “this enhancement of the shipbuilding destination – which, as stated, net of programmatic intentions, currently includes all major shipbuilding regardless of the specific function of the naval units – cannot in itself harm the appellant who operates in this sector, nor does it have an interest in complaining about the corresponding retraction of the commercial destination. (…) In any case, the appeal for additional grounds would also be unfounded on the merits, as the changes approved with the Atf for the Shipyard Area – Pisa Dock and Calafati Dock, do not introduce significant variations to the strategic choices of the Plan.”
A.M.
