With 875 observations addressed, Turin's new master plan moves to the second co-planning conference and aims for approval by year-end. Until then, every project must comply with two plans at once. An analysis of the safeguard regime, the equalisation model and the development rights register.
On 1 September, Turin's city executive adopted the Technical Proposal for the Final Project of the new general master plan through resolution 459/2026. The document closes the review of the 875 observations submitted after 16 March, when the City Council adopted the Preliminary Project by 24 votes to 4. The plan in force dates from 1995.
The file now moves to the second co-planning and assessment conference, involving the Piedmont Region, the Metropolitan City and, where relevant, the heritage authority. The conference has sixty days from the notice of convocation, a deadline shortened by regional law 5/2026, known as "Cresci Piemonte". Then come the reasoned opinion on the Strategic Environmental Assessment, due within 45 days, a revision of the proposal and the final Council vote. The city aims to approve the plan by the end of 2026.
Structural choices confirmed
According to the city, the counter-deductions mainly produced map corrections, changes to the implementing rules and clarifications, including building heights and the historic centre. The framework is unchanged: 34 neighbourhoods, each with its own service hub; eight urban recomposition areas; public transport as the organising element; a demographic scenario of 1.05 million residents.
For investors the decisive element is the equalisation model, based on indifference to ownership and paired with a register of development rights.
Double compliance as a time variable
Until final approval, two instruments coexist. The 1995 plan remains in force, but the adopted plan takes effect through the safeguard measures of article 12 of the Consolidated Building Act: to obtain a permit, any project beyond ordinary maintenance must comply with both. Where it conflicts with the new plan, the city suspends its decision.
For any project in Turin, the practical question becomes what the stricter of the two plans allows.
Safeguard has a maximum duration of three years from adoption under national rules, extendable to five in certain cases. The real risk for an operator is not expiry but delay. Every extra month of conference, assessment or Council debate extends the period in which a project must pass two filters instead of one, and that cost usually falls on whoever already owns the land.
Equalisation and the register: a secondary market is born
Development rights registers are not new in Italy; in Lombardy, regional law 12 of 2005 requires municipalities to keep one. In a city the size of Turin, however, the tool changes the nature of land as an asset. Once building capacity is allocated uniformly and can be transferred, land designated for parks or services stops being an expropriation cost and carries a tradable right.
Value separates from location.
Two consequences follow. Disparity between owners falls, and with it a major source of litigation. But the price of rights will depend on the ratio between sending and receiving areas, and on how quickly the latter become buildable. If the supply of rights grows faster than landing demand, they become illiquid: high theoretical value, uncertain realisable price. When the plan was presented to Turin's architects in autumn 2025, an academic voice had already urged caution on one of its founding mechanisms, citing the Milan experience.
Retail, manufacturing, housing
New retail concentration rules took effect with adoption. The plan confirms the city's manufacturing vocation while the automotive crisis weighs on areas such as Mirafiori, and names housing, including social housing, as its third pillar.
A summary reading
For the Turin market the coming months will be about valuation more than transactions. Transformation areas need to be read through three variables: compliance with both plans during safeguard, the share of building capacity allocated by equalisation, and the time needed for rights to find a landing area. A plan that rewrites the rules after thirty years creates value mainly for those who can price the wait correctly.