Buying land near a cemetery or a road in Italy: buffer zones and what is left to build on

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Cemeteries in Italian villages often sit on the edge of town, exactly where the newer building plots and the farmhouses with land are. A rustico with a view 150 metres from the cemetery wall is a common listing. This guide starts with a real town that reduced its cemetery buffer, then covers the statutory distances, the exceptions in force since 1 January 2026, the arithmetic on a plot and the documents where you find all of it before you pay a deposit. It is a first check, not a technical opinion on a specific plot: the town hall’s technical office (ufficio tecnico) or a qualified surveyor (geometra) gives that.

The words you will meet

A real case: Racconigi, Piedmont

In late 2022 the town council of Racconigi, in the province of Cuneo, voted unanimously to reduce the buffer around the main cemetery. The town’s own website lists the sides affected: north-east along strada della Tagliata and part of via dei Sospiri, north towards the craft and light-industry zone, and west-north along the railway. On the south and west sides, towards farmland, the 200-metre buffer stays, except at Cascina Fornace, where the limit moves to the edge of the residential area.

According to the local paper (Corriere di Saluzzo, 13 December 2022), the constraint had covered much of via Fermi, via dei Salici and via Vittorio Emanuele III since 2017. For five years nobody could put up a new house or extend an existing one on those plots. The paper also reports that the opposition, while voting in favour, objected to cutting the buffer to 100 metres on a field opposite the cemetery that was zoned as private green space with no public works planned. And the vote did not end the matter: the reduction still needed a favourable opinion from the ASL. If you look at a plot on those sides today, ask Racconigi’s technical office for the decision’s number and date, the approved widths side by side, and the outcome of the ASL opinion.

A foreign buyer looking at a plot on via dei Salici in 2020 would have seen "residential zone" in the listing. The questions that mattered were different:

1. How far is the plot from the cemetery wall, measured from the outer edge and not the centre?
2. Has the council actually adopted a reduction, with a number and an ASL opinion, or only proposed one?
3. Has the new line been redrawn on the plan’s constraints map and on the CDU?

The rest of this guide answers those three questions for your own plot.

The cemetery buffer: 200 metres, unless reduced

Article 338 of Italy’s consolidated health laws (Royal Decree 1265 of 27 July 1934), as rewritten by art. 28 of Law 166 of 1 August 2002, bans new buildings and the enlargement of existing ones within 200 metres of the cemetery’s perimeter.

It is a statutory restriction. The Consiglio di Stato, Italy’s supreme administrative court, has held repeatedly that it applies even where the town plan does not draw it and overrides a plan that says otherwise (6th section, no. 4018/2018), and that it may be reduced only in exceptional cases and for public-interest reasons, under the conditions of the fifth paragraph of art. 338 (6th section, no. 5911 of 15 October 2018); it does not exist to protect private interests (4th section, no. 2724/2025). In November 2025 (7th section, no. 9270/2025, a case from Nocera Inferiore near Salerno) the court accepted that a council may reduce the buffer for privately promoted planning schemes too, provided the ASL finds no health objection. In the same case it upheld the refusal of an amnesty for a building partly inside the buffer.

Three ways to build closer

Paragraph 4 covers new or enlarged cemeteries themselves, with a fifty-metre floor. It does not help your plot.

Paragraph 5 lets the council, after a favourable ASL opinion, reduce the buffer to carry out a public work or a planning scheme, taking account of the area’s environmental value, and never below fifty metres. Racconigi used this route. You can ask, but the council decides, and its reasons must survive a legal challenge from neighbours.

The 2026 paragraph. Italy’s 2026 budget law (Law 199 of 30 December 2025, art. 1, para. 911) added a paragraph after paragraph 5. The buffer stays at 200 metres, but the council, with a favourable ASL opinion, may allow works inside it no closer than fifty metres to the perimeter, in three situations. As the City of Cuneo’s planning help desk summarises them:

• a) works foreseen by the planning instruments in force on 18 August 2002;
• b) works separated from the cemetery by public roads of at least municipal level, or by rivers, lakes, significant natural changes in level, bridges or railways;
• c) works next to existing buildings, on the side away from the cemetery.

The Piedmont regional government says the rule has applied since 1 January 2026 without any regional measure. Romagnano Sesia (province of Novara) asked the region on 23 April 2026 how to apply letter b); the region answered on 22 May 2026, and its published opinion also notes that if the ASL does not answer within two months, its opinion counts as favourable.

Letter b) is the one you can test from abroad with an online map. If a municipal road or a railway runs between the plot and the cemetery wall, the council has a legal basis to act. If there is only a meadow, it does not. Letters a) and c) need paperwork: the 2002 town plan for a), the position of existing buildings for c).

Houses already inside the buffer

The last paragraph of art. 338, added in 2002, allows owners of existing buildings inside the buffer to carry out recovery works and works needed to use the building, including an extension of up to 10 per cent and a change of use, plus maintenance, restoration and renovation (the categories in art. 31 letters a)–d) of Law 457/1978). On a 160 m² farmhouse that means at most 16 m² more. No pool house, no second dwelling.

All of this assumes the building is lawful. Anything built inside the buffer without a permit cannot be legalised, because the restriction existed when it went up. Many rural houses have later additions, so ask for the permits behind every part; our guide to illegal building lists what to request.

Running the numbers

These are worked examples, not real plots.

How big the buffer is. A rectangular cemetery of 80 × 60 metres, with 200 metres all round, produces a buffer of 2 × 200 × (80 + 60) + π × 200² = 56 000 + 125 664 = 181 664 m², about 18 hectares or 45 acres. At fifty metres it is 2 × 50 × 140 + π × 50² = 21 854 m². The ring between fifty and two hundred metres, where the 2026 exceptions operate, is almost 16 hectares: in a hill village that can be half the hamlet.

What is left of a plot. A plot of 30 × 40 metres (1 200 m²) with its short side facing the cemetery: near edge 170 metres from the wall, far edge 210. Thirty metres of depth fall inside the buffer, 900 m²; 300 m² remain outside, a strip 10 metres deep. If the plan requires 5 metres from boundaries, the buildable strip is 5 metres deep. You cannot fit a house on it.

Two caveats. Whether the area inside the buffer still counts towards the plot’s building allowance depends on the town plan’s written rules (NTA), so ask. And a 1:5 000 map line is 1–2 metres wide on the ground: a plot cut at 195 metres needs a surveyor’s measurement.

The road buffer

Outside built-up areas, art. 16 of the Highway Code (Legislative Decree 285/1992) bans "building, rebuilding or enlarging, alongside roads, constructions of any kind or material" inside road buffers. The distances are in art. 26 of the Code’s implementing regulation (Presidential Decree 495/1992):

Distances run from the legal road boundary, which includes ditches and verges. The Consiglio di Stato treats this buffer as an absolute ban that needs no proof of actual danger (no. 10506/2024) and extends to underground works such as a basement garage or a pool (no. 4885/2026).

On a plot 45 metres deep fronting a provincial road classed C, outside the built-up area in a farming zone, the first 30 metres are lost. If the plan zoned it for direct development, the buffer would be 10 metres. Ask the road owner (Province, ANAS for national roads, or the town) for the category, and the town for its built-up-area boundary. A plot on the edge of a village can carry both buffers: road in front, cemetery behind. Inside built-up areas different distances apply, under art. 28 of the same regulation and the town plan.

Where to check, step by step

1. Parcel. Get the cadastral sheet and parcel number (foglio, particella) from the seller or the land registry extract (visura catastale).
2. Constraints map. Open the town plan on the town’s website. Brescia, for instance, publishes sheet V-PR12 "Vincoli Amministrativi" (2025); Milan publishes sheet R.05 of its Piano delle Regole, which marks the 50-metre band round cemeteries as non-negotiable.
3. Council decisions. Search the albo pretorio and the archive of council decisions for "fascia di rispetto cimiteriale". A reduction that was only proposed, or sits in a plan variant adopted but never approved, has no effect. What counts is the final council decision with the ASL opinion.
4. CDU. Required by art. 30 of the Building Code (Presidential Decree 380/2001) for any sale of land, or the deed is void. The town must issue it within thirty days and it is valid for a year if the deed states the plan has not changed. Expect a €16 revenue stamp (marca da bollo) on the request and another on the certificate, as Pinerolo’s guidance sets out, plus a secretarial fee set by each town. See our CDU guide.
5. Technical office. Ask whether the town has already used the 2026 paragraph and how long the ASL took.

Regional rules add layers. In Piedmont, art. 27 of Regional Law 56/1977 governs what is allowed inside the buffer. In Veneto, art. 41 para. 4-bis of Regional Law 11/2004, as amended in 2016, requires an overriding public interest for works in an already-reduced buffer. In Lombardy, towns work from a cemetery plan (piano cimiteriale) under regional rules; Milan’s plan still cites regional regulation 6/2004, so ask the technical office which regional text it applies today.

Doing this from abroad

You do not need to be in Italy to run these checks, but you need someone who reads Italian planning documents. A local geometra can request the CDU, read the NTA and measure the plot; many also file the access-to-documents request for council decisions. Agree the fee in writing before work starts. If you will not be in Italy for the deed, your notary can explain how to sign through a power of attorney (procura) granted abroad.

A short message to the town’s technical office often gets a straight answer. In Italian:

Gentile Ufficio Tecnico, sto valutando l’acquisto del terreno al foglio [n.], particella [n.]. Vi chiedo cortesemente se ricade nella fascia di rispetto cimiteriale o stradale, se esistono delibere di riduzione della fascia del cimitero di [nome] e se il Comune ha già applicato il nuovo comma dell’art. 338 introdotto dalla L. 199/2025. Grazie.

Before you pay the deposit (caparra), make a clean CDU and a buffer check a written condition of the preliminary contract (compromesso). An Italian deposit is lost if you walk away without a reason the contract provides.

If the answer is bad

• Price it as unbuildable. Until a council decision says otherwise, land inside the buffer is worth what garden or farmland is worth locally. Take the CDU and the map to the negotiation.
• Buy subject to a decision. If letter b) looks plausible, write a condition into the preliminary contract tied to the council decision and the ASL opinion, with a deadline.
• Get it in writing first. Ask the seller to file a request with the town before you sign. An answer from the technical office outweighs anything the agent says.
• Scale down. With a lawful house, the 10 per cent extension and change of use remain. A basement garage inside a road buffer does not.
• Walk away if the plot lies wholly within fifty metres. No decision can save it.

The zone, the mapped constraints and the plot’s distance to mapped cemeteries and roads are in a TerrenoCheck report for your plot, in English, with source and date for every map, for €29 (€39 with the Italian edition too). Council decisions and ASL opinions still have to come from the town hall. Pin the plot on the map → · See a sample report