Milan’s public prosecutors have given up on the town planning case, but the damage remains

Sixteen months after rocking Milan with a massive investigation into town planning – which led to the entire city being discredited (accused of being built on a corrupt system), the unjust arrest of six people, the halting of dozens of building sites and the despair of 4,500 families left homeless – the Milan Public Prosecutor’s Office has decided to drop the cases against all those under investigation: Mayor Beppe Sala, the former Councillor for Urban Regeneration Giancarlo Tancredi (who resigned as a result of the investigation), architect Stefano Boeri, builders Manfredi Catella and Andrea Bezziccheri, manager Federico Pella, Giuseppe Marinoni and Alessandro Scandurra (former members of the council’s Landscape Commission). “We were just joking,” the public prosecutor’s office headed by Marcello Viola seems to be saying, but the damage caused by the investigation is considerable. The strand of the case for which the prosecutors themselves are now requesting the charges be dropped erupted in July 2025, with a request (granted by investigating magistrate Mattia Fiorentini) to impose five orders of house arrest and one order of detention in prison (for Bezziccheri). The investigators had hypothesised the existence of a corruption scheme that would have bent the municipality’s town-planning decisions to the interests of property developers, through professional appointments and consultancy work. 

The investigating magistrate went so far as to regard the fact that the suspects denied the charges as a ‘symptomatic’ element of corruption. The mass resignations from the Landscape Commission were deemed “evocative” of collusion and cronyism. A note found on Tancredi’s desk was interpreted as evidence of an intention to pursue a speculative strategy. In other words, the presumption of guilt was elevated to a method of investigation and preliminary judgement.

In September 2025, the Court of Review dismantled that line of argument. The judges described the view of the relationships between professionals and public officials underlying the investigation as “derogatory” and identified a “reverse approach”: instead of first establishing the existence of a corrupt agreement – how, where and when it had been entered into – the prosecutors had inferred the agreement from an alleged unlawful act. The Review Court quashed all six precautionary measures.

In November, the Court of Cassation ruled. The Supreme Court declared the public prosecutors’ appeal inadmissible and, in its reasoning, stated in black and white that the payments made by Coima to architect Scandurra’s practice “did not constitute unlawful remuneration for a public official”. No evidence was found of any subversion of the public service nor of a causal link between the professional contracts and the alleged sale of public office. In December, in a further ruling, the Court of Cassation reiterated that there was no evidence of corruption between Catella and Scandurra. Now the public prosecutor’s office itself acknowledges that the irregularities and conflicts of interest that have emerged are not sufficient to sustain a charge: there is no demonstrable link between the payments made and the exercise of public office. According to Sala, the prosecutors have taken on board the findings of the investigating judge and the Review Court regarding the absence of sufficient evidence to support the allegation of undue influence.

The image of a city portrayed as the testing ground for a shadowy system, in which every urban development project concealed an illicit deal, has caused immense reputational damage. The result: construction sites at a standstill, investments on hold, operators fleeing, and families facing uncertainty. In June, speaking to Il Foglio, the property developer Carlo Rusconi put the economic damage caused by the investigations at three billion euros: around two hundred projects on hold, each involving an average investment of 15 million. Rusconi was one of the eight defendants acquitted in the Torre Milano trial, another landmark case in the current wave of legal proceedings concerning urban planning. All eight defendants were acquitted.

Then there is the case of former deputy public prosecutor Tiziana Siciliano, who coordinated the investigations into town planning. At the end of May, a few months after retiring, she announced her candidacy for deputy mayor on Massimiliano Lisa’s civic list. This decision raised obvious questions about its appropriateness: having investigated the local council, Siciliano was preparing to enter the political arena. In September, she withdrew her candidacy, explaining that she had been subjected to “attacks based on falsehoods and insinuations” (the nature of which is unknown).

Now comes the request to dismiss the case (on which an investigating magistrate will have to rule). It does not undo the arrests, the resignations, the halted construction sites, the lost investments and the stigma attached to Milan. It remains to be seen who will be held accountable for the cost of an investigation that has shaken an entire city and which, according to the prosecutors themselves, has no basis in fact.

Ermes Antonucci