On a grey Tuesday morning outside the Palazzo Isimbardi on Corso Monforte, Lombardy's regional construction authority confirmed plans for a EUR 2.1 billion programme to seismically retrofit more than 4,600 post-war residential blocks across greater Milan. The announcement, made on 4 March by deputy assessor Giuliana Ferretti, gave contractors an 18-month window to begin structural reinforcement works before Italy's revised building safety code takes effect in January 2027.
Residential towers built between 1950 and 1975 form the bulk of the target list. Many were erected during the rapid post-war expansion, when aggregate quality control and rebar specifications lagged behind seismic risk assessments that only appeared decades later. The Istituto Nazionale per la Sicurezza Edilizia, a government-funded research body, estimates that 38 per cent of Milan's housing stock in zones 3 and 4 falls below current Class II seismic performance thresholds. That is a staggering figure. According to figures that could not be independently verified, roughly one in five of those buildings has never undergone any form of non-destructive testing since original construction, meaning base isolation capacity and shear wall integrity remain unknown. When we spoke with Ferretti at a press briefing after the event, she acknowledged the scale of the backlog but insisted the funding timeline was realistic, citing parallel programmes in Emilia-Romagna completed between 2019 and 2023.
Labour shortages could slow the rollout. The Federazione Italiana Costruttori Edili, which represents roughly 12,000 contracting firms nationwide, warned last month that specialised retrofit crews are already stretched thin. Demand for fibre-reinforced polymer wrapping technicians, a niche skill set in post-tensioning and external strengthening, has tripled since 2023. Wages for certified structural fitters in Lombardy have risen by 14 per cent year-on-year. Small firms are struggling. A morning espresso at a bar near the Naviglio Grande now costs more than some junior site labourers earned per hour in 2018, a local foreman told us, only half joking.
Still, the programme has its supporters among engineers and urbanists who argue that delaying intervention only raises the eventual bill. Retrofit work of this kind typically adds 15 to 20 years of certified structural life to a building, reduces insurance premiums for residents, and improves energy efficiency as a by-product when external cladding is replaced simultaneously. The Lombardy regional government has earmarked EUR 480 million in direct subsidies for condominium associations, with the remainder expected from a mix of Superbonus tax credits and European Investment Bank soft loans. Whether those credits survive the next budget cycle in Rome, however, is a question nobody in the room was willing to answer directly.
"We cannot wait for the next earthquake to test whether our buildings are safe. The cost of prevention is always lower than the cost of reconstruction."
Giuliana Ferretti, Deputy Assessor for Urban Safety, Lombardy Region
Ferretti's office confirmed that the first 320 buildings, concentrated in the Quarto Oggiaro and Corvetto districts, will enter the tendering phase before June, with physical works beginning by September at the earliest.
This article is based on publicly available data and direct reporting. No commercial interests influenced its content.