By Judgment No. 3495/2026, delivered in proceedings in which the Firm represented the claimant, the Regional Administrative Court of Lombardy – Milan addresses two key issues concerning urban planning in the City of Milan: (i) the distinction between building renovation and new construction, and (ii) the circumstances in which the prior approval of an implementation plan is required, in light of the Guidelines adopted by the Municipality of Milan through Executive Board Resolution No. 552/2025 and Director’s Decision No. 4192/2025.
The Case
The proceedings originated from the Municipality’s refusal to issue a building permit for the redevelopment of an office building located within Milan’s historic centre (NAF).
The claimant classified the project as building renovation pursuant to Article 3(1)(d) of Presidential Decree No. 380/2001, arguing that, although the project included energy-efficiency, seismic and structural upgrading works, a limited redistribution of the existing volumes with minor extensions beyond the original building footprint, the conservation of the existing facades, the redevelopment of the surrounding external areas and a partial change of use from office to retail, it nevertheless preserved the original architectural, volumetric and spatial configuration of the building.
The Municipality, on the other hand, considered that the project constituted new construction, as it also involved demolition and reconstruction works, and held that, given the floor area ratio exceeding 3 cubic metres per square metre and the departure from the morphological rules of the Town Planning Scheme (PGT), the project required the prior approval of an implementation plan.
The claimant challenged the refusal before the Regional Administrative Court of Lombardy, which upheld the appeal for the reasons set out below.
The Regional Administrative Court’s Findings
a) Classification of the Project: Building Renovation Rather than New Construction
The Regional Administrative Court held that the project could not be classified as new construction.
The Court noted that the demolition and reconstruction works extending beyond the original building footprint concerned only a limited portion of the building and that the project, when assessed as a whole rather than on an atomistic basis, primarily consisted of functional reorganisation works, structural upgrading and improvements to the performance of the existing building, without altering its overall volume, footprint or maximum height.
The Court found that, although the correspondence between the proposed and the existing building was not perfect, it was nevertheless sufficient to exclude a substantial transformation of the building capable of qualifying the project as new construction.
Referring to the principles established by the Council of State (Judgment No. 8542 of 4 November 2025), the Regional Administrative Court reiterated that building renovation may exist even “in the absence of perfect continuity between the new and the pre-existing building”, provided that “the requirements of the unity of the building, the simultaneity of demolition and reconstruction and the mere use of the pre-existing volume, without further alterations to the morphology of the area” are satisfied.
b) Properties Located in Zone A and Historic Centres: The Significance of the Saving Clause
The Regional Administrative Court also examined the limitation set out in Article 3(1)(d) of Presidential Decree No. 380/2001 applicable to properties located in Zone A and historic centres, under which demolition and reconstruction works qualify as building renovation only where the building footprint, facades, site, volumetric and typological characteristics of the existing building are preserved, without any increase in volume (the so-called “faithful demolition and reconstruction”).
According to the Court, however, this limitation is not absolute, since the same provision contains a saving clause allowing derogations where expressly provided by legislation or by town planning instruments.
In the case at hand, the property is located within the “Nuclei di Antica Formazione (NAF)” governed by Articles 18 and 19 of the Technical Implementation Rules of the Rules Plan of the Milan PGT. With regard to buildings of aesthetic, cultural and environmental value, such provisions permit works up to the level of ”building renovation, requiring the preservation of the building footprint, site and facades facing public spaces”, while also allowing “different categories of intervention” subject to a favourable opinion of the Landscape Commission.
The saving clause contained in Article 3(1)(d) of Presidential Decree No. 380/2001 therefore allows the local planning framework to prevail and permits the project to remain classified as building renovation, even where not all the features of the original building are perfectly preserved.
c) Inapplicability of the Guidelines on Implementation Plans
Since the project qualifies as building renovation rather than new construction, the Court excluded the applicability of the Guidelines adopted by the Municipality of Milan through Executive Board Resolution No. 552/2025 and Director’s Decision No. 4192/2025, insofar as they require the prior approval of an implementation plan as a condition for the issuance of a building title.
The Court reaffirmed that, pursuant to the Guidelines, an implementation plan is required only for new construction projects exceeding certain dimensional thresholds (a height exceeding 25 metres or a floor area ratio exceeding 3 cubic metres per square metre) in areas that are not adequately urbanised or where the project departs from the morphological rules of the PGT.
Projects qualifying as building renovation, by contrast, fall outside the scope of those provisions and remain subject to the ordinary planning rules of the PGT. Accordingly, the refusal was held to be unlawful insofar as it made the issuance of the building permit conditional upon the prior approval of an implementation plan.
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