People will be heard on Roma stadium

(ANSA) - Rome, February 20 - 5-Star Movement (M5S) leader Beppe Grillo said Monday the anti-establishment group's Rome administration would poll residents before greenlighting a new stadium for AS Roma. "If we do it it will be done with innovative criteria and in a share way; first we will hear the population the project concerns and with them we'll be able to build an extraordinary thing," he said. Grillo was speaking on his way into a meeting with M5S Rome Mayor Virginia Raggi after Rome's heritage superintendency at the weekend said a horseracing course at the planned construction site could not be demolished because of its historic architectural value.
    Culture Minister Dario Franceschini, meanwhile, said Rome's heritage superintendency was "autonomous" and could not be overridden in its recommendation that the horseracing stadium was a historic building to be preserved. "On restrictions and opinions, superintendencies are autonomous," he said. "If I intervened to try to influence ongoing procedures, I would be breaking the law," he said. However, he said that once all procedures and appeals have been exhausted, the matter could come to a "final decision" by cabinet. The hippodrome at the Tor di Valle site was designed by Spanish architect Julio Garcia Lafuente and built in 1962. Roma are talking to Raggi's administration to see if a slightly revised and downsized version of their original project can go ahead and give the club its long-desired private stadium.
    AS Roma General Manager Mauro Baldissoni said Sunday night that the club would press on with a plan to build a new stadium in southern Rome.
    Announcing a likely appeal to the Lazio regional court (TAR) against the supreintendy's ruling, Baldissoni said "we're going ahead on this plan that will see an overall investment of 2 billion euros and will cut Rome's jobless rate by 0.8%". He said some 60 million euros had already been put into the project.
    Grillo is expected to press Raggi to renew support for the project despite protests from M5S grass roots who say it is an excuse for rampant building speculation.
    The million-cubic-metre project envisages three skyscrapers as well as a shops and office complex.
    Last week Raggi met with Roma officials and said she would not stand in the way of a revised project, 20% scaled down in volume.
    Baldissoni, in vowing to get past the superintendency's ruling, said the site was "decrepit and full of asbestos".