idealista/news interviewed the mayor
Comune di Castiglione di Sicilia
Comune di Castiglione di Sicilia

The 1 euro home project has landed in Sicily, in particular Castiglione, a village on the slopes of Etna, overlooking the beautiful Alcantara valley. The local council is not just promoting 1 initiative, but 3, all aimed at repopulating the village and saving it from degradation and abandonment. idealista/news spoke to the mayor Antonio Camarda.

Castiglione di Sicilia is the main town and historic village in a territory that includes 6 settlements and extends as far as Etnea and the Alcantera gorges. The village is a crib of houses perched one on top of the other, full of monuments, intertwining narrow streets, squares with noble palaces and a Byzantine dome declared a monument of national interest.

In order to repopulate the village, which has gone from 14,000 inhabitants at the beginning of the 20th century to about 3,000 today, about a year ago the municipality began a census of the 1,777 housing units in the old town, 937 of which are abandoned. "For each property," explains the mayor, "we drew up a file with photos, position on the map, the type of structure, the state of repair, the type of roof, a possible expropriation value and other elements. We then started to track down the owners of these properties to check their willingness to sell these houses at auction starting from a base of 1 euro. These properties are in a state of ruin or very poorly maintained".

If you want to be in with a chance of buying one of these 1 euro houses in Castiglione, application forms should be online within a month. In spite of the fact that the project hasn't yet opened its application process, thousands of emails have already arrived from all over the world, from the United States, India and Australia, from people interested in buying houses in the village. Everyone has their own particular project, and, as the mayor explains, "there will be an objective criterion for the allocation of the properties that does not depend only on who offers the most, but also on other factors, such as, for example, the time needed to carry out the project (buyers will have 2 years to renovate the property), the use of local resources and the use that will be made of the property. All the criteria are already indicated in the guidelines of the 1 euro house  project on the town council's website. The aim is to repopulate the village, bringing beauty to where there is now decay and neglect".

"Houses in the village", Castiglione di Sicilia 

In addition to the 'Case a 1 euro' project, the municipal administration of Castiglione is carrying out another project called 'Case nel borgo' (Houses in the village). "Many people who own properties in a good or fair state of repair have no intention of selling their houses for 1 euro. Therefore, what we are proposing to these people is advertising their properties in a showcase that we will create on our website in order to sell them at a price that we consider reasonable. We will list the property, put up the photos, the sale price, the owner's name and the agency number. This showcase will therefore include houses in the village that people don't want to sell for 1 euro, but maybe for 2000 euros".

A third project, on the other hand, is based on the national legislation on villages, which "allows the expropriation of abandoned buildings that are dangerous to public safety. In this case, we are thinking of expropriating 6, 7 or 8 small houses and changing their use in order to transform them, for example, into wine cellars, creating a wine route, or into an Albergo Diffuso, an innovative concept of hospitality in Italy. It's a complex project that will take a long time, but we've already started it".

To publicise the project abroad and to find potential buyers for the houses in the historic village, collaboration agreements have also been set up with international partners, such as the London-based company ITS for SICILY.