Riviera homes: €30 a month

Cut-price housing for locals aims to revive a dying community in Italy near a haven for Hollywood stars An idyllic fishing village tucked away on the Italian Riviera just over a mile from the celebrity hang-out of Portofino is offering stone cottages with sea views for rent from €30 a month in a desperate bid to bring back local families as the rural population dies out. The empty homes in San Fruttuoso, which are being dubbed the “world’s most beautiful council houses”, will be redecorated and handed over later this year as the full-time population of the once thriving village dips from around 100 in the last century to just five. “This is a unique case of a beauty spot that is known around the world gradually emptying,” said Giovanni Boitano, the regional housing assessor who is vetting locals to fill the 11 new apartments. Hidden in protected woodland and connected only by footpaths to the outside world, San Fruttuoso amounts to a cluster of houses and a disused 10th-century Benedictine abbey that give on to a beach and transparent waters where fishermen have cast their nets for centuries. Just over the headland sits bustling Portofino, a haven for Hollywood stars since Richard Burton proposed to Elizabeth Taylor in a local restaurant. In the town where Dolce and Gabbana host Madonna at its villa, small apartments in old fishermen’s houses are snapped up for around €1.5m. In San Fruttuoso, where inhabitants must go by boat to reach nearby towns – or take an hour’s walk through chestnut trees and ancient olive groves when rough seas stop sailings – it is a different story. Visiting celebrities rarely stay longer than the time it takes for a leisurely lunch in the harbour, while locals have kept up a steady exodus for years. In the 1980s, a teacher who arrived by boat from nearby Camogli to teach classes in the abbey’s tower stopped coming as the population dwindled. In 1994 politicians stopped showing up to set up voting booths at elections. “The place is all yours in the winter, although you share it with torrential rain and fog and not everyone likes it,” said Giuseppina Repetto, 68, whose husband’s family has run a restaurant in the summer for generations. “In the summer it is like a film,” said Mario Scevola, 65, one of the five full-time residents left. “But in winter, if the boats can’t make it, you need to get in the supplies, you can’t get a doctor and we play a lot of cards.” Alessandro Capretti, who is restoring the abbey, said: “When the last tourist boat leaves, the village returns to how it was when the monks were here. There is a kind of mystical silence.” Repetto was less convinced. “The community spirit we once had has long gone,” she said. Apart from the restoration of the houses abandoned in the 1970s, spaces for two new restaurants, a bed and breakfast, a small museum and an olive oil mill are being opened to boost job prospects. Only local residents qualify for the cut-price housing, and no millionaires would be let in, said Boitano. “You need to be on less than €30,000 a year to get an apartment, and anyone caught sub-letting will immediately be ejected,” he said. The plan is just one of many being put into action up and down Italy as stunning but often remote villages are slowly abandoned by young Italians moving to the cities. Immigrants landing on the island of Lampedusa are being invited to take up a trade in the Calabrian town of Riace, while other villages are turned into tourist destinations or wired for high-speed internet to attract artists. “I remember the beach here packed with 20 fishing boats, including my father’s, when I was a child,” recalled Scevola. “I can’t wait to see life starting to be lived again here.” Italy Housing Europe Elizabeth Taylor Communities Tom Kington guardian.co.uk

Posted by on May 7, 2011. Filed under News, Politics, World News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.