Romeo Alberghi is an Italian company which bought in Naples an old building formerly called “ex Flotta Lauro “ and then turned into a luxurious hotel called “Hotel Romeo”.

The municipality of Naples in its administrative duties, sued Romeo Alberghi in view of the fact that the modification brought to the building were not officially established by the authorities, the new owner had built illegally two additional floors  and most of all, by doing this “renovation” it damaged the landscape going against UNESCO principles as well as Art. 9 of the Italian Constitution.

On the first instance, the Regional Tribunal (T.A.R. Campania) claimed that the property object of dispute would also fall in that area called as “area B” by a law on urban plans emitted on September 6, 1985, which would exclude the defendant from asking special authorizations regarding the respect of landscape. Therefore the T.A.R. concluded that the application of the derogation suspected of unconstitutionality lead to conflicting consequences with the constitutional principles governing the protection of the landscape. For this reason the T.A.R. appeals to the Constitutional Court opening an incidental process, asking the Court to rule on the matter of the legitimacy of articles 134, 136, 139,140-142 of the Legislative Decree of 22 January 2004 n.42 which state that there is no duty for the local administration to include UNESCO heritage locations as areas whose landscape cannot be modified in any manner.