Usi Civici: Open Evaluation Issues in the Italian Legal Framework on Civic Use Properties
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Dear Authors,
the article is very interesting and correct in its structure.
I suggest you to consider, in par. 3, the environmental value referred to in subparagraph 8b of Art. 3, Law 168/2017; among the evaluative approaches you propose, which do you think is the most appropriate? This is a hot topic in Italy right now.
Best Regards
Author Response
Dear Reviewer,
Thank you for the feedback received and the punctual comment on one of hot topic of the paper. We took into account you comment and included in paragraph 3.2. a specific reference to the evaluation approach that we recommend to use to estimate the environmental value of a land in cases of transferal of civic uses rights from a property to another one in case the former had a irreversible transformation.
Best regards
Danny Casprini
Alessandra Oppio, PhD
Francesca Torrieri, PhD
Reviewer 2 Report
Interesting paper. I have no extra comments.
Author Response
Dear Reviewer,
Thank you for your appreciation.
Best regards
Danny Casprini
Alessandra Oppio, PhD
Francesca Torrieri, PhD
Reviewer 3 Report
This is a manuscript dealing with, on the one hand, a very specific topic, and, on the other hand, a theme that is relevant in society, namely who has the right to use particular spaces. The manuscript needs to be substantially improved to rise its scientific and practical value.
First, do state clearly what is the research problem, how that is studied and what are your novel results and how they contribute to the current state-of-the-art regarding the research on "usi civici".
Second, there is a need to engage much better in the current understanding of "usi civici" and related research, and published books and articles on the topic (martinelli, Di Genio, Battisti & Pisano, Chiantini, Scafati, Pieraccini, etc.) - currently, these only a vague connection to existing research.
Third, it could be useful to reflect the Italian case, even briefly, to the situation in some other European countries to understand what is so specific about Italy and how the results can be relevant for other countries. Perhaps you could even reflect on "everyman's rights" that are common in Northern Europe.
Fourth, you start with rather narrow understanding of property divided into public or private (as their economic function) and then open it a bit by saying that there are also associations. You need to be much more nuanced in this and conceptually clear because this is a key topic is usi civici - so look forward, not backward.
Author Response
Dear Reviewer,
Thank you for your feedback and punctual comments on our work. It was a good opportunity to revise part of the manuscript. Allow us to reply to the point raised.
First, in the introduction we stated in a clearer way the research problem and the objectives circumscribing its scope to frame the appraisal and evaluation demand included in the Italian regulations dealing with civic use rights.
Second, we reinforced connection with previous research and extended the bibliography.
Third, although very interesting to conduct a comparison with other European countries doing so will take us off topic for in the current paper that deals with issues included in the national legislation on civic use rights and not with general appraisal and evaluation questions. We believe this can be a way forward in the research on civic uses, but outside the scope of the submitted paper. Therefore, we did not revise the paper according to this comment.
Fourth, we went back to the definition of property in connection with civic uses rights, that according to the Italian legislation are real rights over public properties and not ownership rights. From this perspective we took into account civic use rights as a mean to look at property in a more nuanced way recognizing how properties encumbered by civic uses are different from private and public properties as well as from shared-ownership properties. The changes can be found in the introduction and in section 2.
Best regards,
Danny Casprini
Alessandra Oppio, PhD
Francesca Torrieri, PhD
Round 2
Reviewer 3 Report
ok
