Portofino, the parish priest against Vittorio Malacalza’s elevator project: “It risks damaging the church”

Portofino – Start of the year with don Camillo and Peppone for Portofino. Don Alessandro Giosso, parish priest of the famous Ligurian village, denounced the Municipality which gave the green light to the construction of an excavation near the Divo Martino church for the construction of an underground driveway owned by Vittorio Malacalza, the entrepreneur former Pirelli shareholder and former majority shareholder of Banca Carige. An operation, says the priest in the complaint, which “could cause a serious danger of damage to the church, compromising its structural integrity”.

Excavation would be necessary for the laying of two elevators, one in the property of Malacalza, which would allow the entrepreneur to reach the house that is located in front of the church. In exchange for the permits, the Municipality would have an elevator that would break down the architectural barriers to reach the public area of ​​the former kindergarten. “In itself, the work is not opposed by the Parish – explains Fr Giosso – but it is precisely the methods of execution and the absence of suitable precautions that generate strong doubts: the ascertained landslide of the places and the consequent vibrations generated by the excavations could lead to serious damage to the integrity of the ecclesiastical property “. In short, Fr Giosso says: let us prevent the intervention or let us do it with all the necessary precautions.

The excavation for the Malacalza lift would be placedto 6 meters from the church, a building that for years has had evolving, documented and monitored lesions. Don Giosso, strong in geological expertise and with the approval of the diocese of Genoa, represented by the lawyers Daniele Rovelli and Antonino Bongiorno Gallegra, turned to the prosecutor, the Superintendency and the park of Portofino also for a series of administrative acts of the practice not considered corrected as the absence of a landscape authorization and a geological report not correctly dated according to the conventions of the Public Administration and not compliant with the requirements of the PUC produced by the Municipality of Portofino itself. The city council has already given the green light to the project.