Integrating urban and port planning policies in a sustainable perspective: the case study of Naples historic harbour area

ABSTRACT

This paper explores the case of the historic harbour area of Naples, considered highly significant, due to its physical and cultural characteristics, with the aim of reflecting on the contemporary need for building renewed and synergic city–port relations in a sustainable perspective. Focusing on the physical and functional city–port integration, the study investigates Naples harbour planning policy between twentieth and twenty-first centuries in order to identify the limitations of older instruments and to exam the current proposal, finally suggesting perspectives for the future. The analysis highlights the fact that, in the port of Naples, with a landlord governance, the main obstacles to a more inclusive planning policy have been related to land use conflict between on one hand the public interest of the Port Authority and Municipality and the private interest of port operators on the other. In conclusion, the need for city–port plan integration is outlined as a central planning issue so as to combine the economic development of the harbour with social, cultural and ecological themes and to overcome the conflicts between the different actors involved in the complex planning process.

KEYWORDS:

• Port of Naples
• city–port planning integration
• conflicts of interest
• quality of life
• port competitiveness
• sustainability

Acknowledgements

The Authors wish to thank the anonymous reviewers for their comments and suggestions and Arch. Biagina Di Benedetto and Ing. Alberto Bracci Laudiero of the Naples Port Authority Technical Office for the invaluable data and discussion during the development of this paper.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Giuseppina Pugliano, architect, is Assistant Professor in the Department of Engineering, University of Naples Parthenope, where she teaches Architectural and Urban Restoration within Master’s Degree of Civil Engineering. Her main research topics are focused on critical-historical, theoretical and methodological aspects of Restoration/Conservation discipline and on those connected to relation between heritage and planning, even at territorial scale. She is author of two monographs and of many other essays concerning different themes on landscape and built heritage conservation. She is an ordinary member of SIRA (Italian Society for Architectural Restoration), of the ‘Center of Studies for the History of Architecture’ in Rome, of the ‘Accademia Pontaniana’ and of the Archeology, Literature and Fine Arts Academy in Naples.

Guido Benassai is presently Associate Professor of Hydraulics in the Department of Engineering, University of Naples Parthenope. He was Teacher and Director of the Master 'Costal Risks' held for two years at University Parthenope. He was Principal Investigator of scientific research projects since 1998, and was responsible for applied research projects since 1994. He has been editor, together with Prof. G. Rodriguez and Prof. C. Brebbia of the book series 'Coastal Processes: International Conference on Physical Coastal Processes, Management and Engineering', published by WIT Press in 2009 and 2011. He is the author of 80 papers covering the topics of Hydraulics and Coastal Protection, and also of the book ‘Introduction to Coastal Dynamics and Shoreline Protection’, WIT Press, 2006.

Edoardo Benassai retired in 2005 as Full Professor of Maritime Structures in the Department of Department of Civil, Construction and Environmental Engineering of University of Naples Federico II. He is the author of over 90 scientific publications and he is an ordinary member of the ‘Accademia Pontaniana’. Among his widespread activities of consultancy for Government Agencies, he supervised a comprehensive set of hydraulic model tests performed by Delft Hydraulics Laboratory for the 200m extension of the outer Port of Naples breakwater Duca d’Aosta. He also coordinated in 1998 the ‘Guidelines for the design of Naples Port Masterplan’, which were commissioned from ‘Consorzio Autonomo del Porto di Napoli’ to ARPA (Agency for Research and Advanced Production), a spin-off of University of Naples Federico II.

ORCID

Giuseppina Pugliano http://orcid.org/0000-0001-7391-8718

Notes

1 Studies on waterfronts include: Hoyle, Pinder and Husain (eds.), Revitalising the Waterfront; Hoyle and Pinder (eds.), European Port Cities in Transition; Bruttomesso, Waterfront; Norcliffe, Bassett and Hoare, ‘The emergence of postmodernism on the urban waterfront’; Marshall (ed.), Waterfronts in Post-Industrial Cities; Desfor et al. (eds.), Transforming Urban Waterfronts; Hein (ed.) Port Cities: Dynamic Landscapes and Global Networks.

2 The literature on the city-port integration includes: Hayuth, ‘The port-urban interface’; Hoyle, ‘The Port-city Interface’; Hoyle and Pinder (eds.), ‘Revitalising the Waterfront’; Hoyle, ‘Field of Tension’; Hayuth, ‘Globalization and the port-urban interface’; Hein, Port Cities: Dynamic Landscapes; Fusco Girard, ‘Toward a Smart Sustainable Development of Port Cities/Areas’; Daamen and Vries, ‘Governing the European port - city interface’; Daamen and Louw, ‘Sustainable Development of the European Port-City Interface’.

3 Choay, L'allégoire du patrimoine.

4 This approach is based on the pre-existing contexts values recognition in all historical/aesthetic, social, urban aspects, and on their consequent integration into a more inclusive urban planning. This perspective is founded on the concept of ‘integrated conservation’ defined in the European Charter of the Architectural Heritage and the Amsterdam Declaration (Council of Europe, Congress of European Architectural Heritage, Declaration of Amsterdam, 21–25 October 1975, Amsterdam). This concept finds its origin in the principles of the International Venice Charter of Restoration (ICOMOS, International Council on Monuments and Sites, International Charter for the Conservation and Restoration of Monuments and Sites. Venice 1964) that suggested, for the first time, an original urban and territorial dimension to conservation.

5 The topic of conflicts in seaports includes an interdisciplinary approach, embracing issues, and problems related to engineering, law, economics, geography, spatial planning, strategic management, and sociology. Various scholars have studied this argument in the perspective of the stakeholders, see: Bassett, Griffiths, and Smith, ‘Testing Governance’; Notteboom and Winkelmans, ‘Stakeholder relations management in ports’; de Langen, ‘Stakeholders, conflicting interests’; Dooms and Verbeke, ‘Stakeholders management in ports’; Parola and Maugeri, ‘Origin and taxonomy of conflicts in seaports’.

6 Hoyle, ‘The port-city interface,’ 430.

7 See Diaz Orueta and Fainstein, ‘The New Mega-Projects’.

8 See McCarthy, ‘Spatial Planning’; Warsewa, ‘Adaptation and Individuality’; Hein, ‘Port cities and urban wealth’.

9 See Schubert, ‘Transformation Processes on Waterfronts in Seaport Cities,’ 32–39.

10 Hein, ‘Port cities and urban wealth,’ 341.

11 Fusco Girard, ‘Sustainable city and creativity’; Id., Toward a Smart Sustainable Development’; Daamen and Vries, ‘Governing the European port - city interface’; Daamen and Louw, ‘Sustainable Development of the European Port-City Interface’.

12 Hein, ‘Port cityscapes,’ 318.

13 See Hoyle, ‘The Port-city Interface’.

14 Aveta and Marino (eds.), Restauro e riqualificazione del centro storico di Napoli.

15 Amirante, Bruni and Santangelo, Il Porto; Gravagnuolo (ed.), Napoli. Il porto e la città; Fusco Girard (ed.), ‘Sustainable city and creativity’; Clemente (ed.), ‘Il mare e la città metropolitana di Napoli’; De Rosa and Di Palma, ‘Historic Urban landscape Approach’; Russo and Formato, ‘City/Sea Searching for a New Connection’; De Martino, ‘Land in limbo’.

16 See Winkelmans and Notteboom, ‘Port master planning’; Savino (ed.), Waterfront d’Italia; Pavia and di Venosa, Waterfront.

17 Amirante, ‘Napoli: Il fronte del porto’.

18 For the specific topic, see: Capasso, Napoli greco-romana; Gabrici, ‘Il porto di Napoli’.

19 Pessolano, ‘Il porto di Napoli nei secoli XVI–XVIII’.

20 Carsana et al., ‘Evoluzione del paesaggio costiero’.

21 Colletta, Napoli, città portuale e mercantile.

22 Alisio, Napoli e il Risanamento.

23 See De Martino, ‘Land in Limbo,’ 210.

24 Toma, Storia del porto di Napoli; Gravagnuolo, Napoli.

25 Ministerial Decree, 2478 of 27th April 1958.

26 See Valleri, Lamonarca and Papa, ‘Port governance in Italy’; Parola et al., ‘Dealing with multi-scalar embeddedness and institutional divergence,’ 91–94.

27 Parola, Tei and Ferrari, ‘Managing port concessions’. See also: Notteboom, ‘Concession agreements as port governance tools’; Pallis, Notteboom and de Langen, ‘Concession agreements’; Ferrari, Parola and Tei, ‘Governance models and port concessions in Europe’.

28 See Ferrari and Musso, ‘Italian ports’.

29 Pavia and di Venosa, Waterfront.

30 Ministero Lavori Pubblici, Linee Guida (2004).

31 Amirante (ed.), Il porto di Napoli.

32 Vote no. 203 of 29 October 2004.

33 Naples Port Committee Resolution no. 30 of 28 July 2011.

34 Naples Port Committee Resolution no. 11 of 6 March 2012.

35 Naples Port Authority, Port of Naples Masterplan-Technical Regulations.

36 Naples Port Authority, Port of Naples Masterplan-General Report.

37 In fact the environmental issues, directly related to oil traffic operation, would certainly be exacerbated by replacing this traffic outside the port: the possibility of moving petroleum products in dock ensures a good level of environmental protection for berthing operations, discharge of products, detachment of ships and bunkering only in very calm conditions.

38 Naples Port Authority, Port of Naples Masterplan-Environmental Preliminary Report.

39 Port Committee Resolution no. 18 of 12 July 2012.

40 Vote n. 63 of 22 March 2013.

41 Parola et al., ‘Dealing with multi-scalar embeddedness and institutional divergence’.

42 In particular, the Management Committee consists of the president of the port system authority, of a representative of the region, of a component appointed by the metropolitan city mayor, of a component appointed by the mayor of each municipality included and, finally, of a representative of the maritime authority.

43 Ministero Lavori Pubblici, Linee Guida (2017).

44 Pavia and Salimei, Il nuovo waterfront monumentale di Napoli.

45 Central Tyrrhenian Sea Port System Authority, Tree-year Operative Plan 2017–2019, 136.

46 Taneja et al. ‘Flexibility in Port Planning and Design’.

47 Pavia and di Venosa, Waterfront.

48 Ibid.