Comitato Dora Spina Tre (tre means 3) is a volunteer committee founded in December 2004 by a group of people living in Torino who believe in personal involvement in the social life of their neighbourhood.
We think that, when great urban changes are made, people must, not only have been previously informed, but must also get really involved in its planning and realization, so that the necessary public monetary investments and their priorities can be identified by those who know the needs of the area well, and by those who will be the first users of everything which will be provided.
In our opinion, the urban transformations plan called Spina 3 has not had this positive characteristic so far: people have not been involved, neither have they been previously sufficiently informed.

The city of Turin is situated in the North-Western part of Italy and it is an important industrial location. The territory of Spina 3 is an area of one million square metres in the Northern part of the city, not very far from the city centre.
Starting from the last decade of the 19th century, the river Dora Riparia (whose water was used for power) favoured the establishment of important industries like Ferriere FIAT (iron metallurgy), Michelin (tyres), Paracchi (carpets), Superga (shoes), Officine Savigliano (electrical and railway manufactured goods).
Savigliano built, for instance, the iron roof of the main Milano railway station and of the rails for the Trans-Siberian railway.
All these great factories were disbanded in the last years of the 20th Century and thousands of jobs were lost.

The Municipal Administration and the various companies that own the buildings made a plan of “rebirth” for the area. This plan, named Spina 3, can take advantage of considerable economic resources, both from the Italian government and the European Union, in order to revitalize this former industrial area and the surrounding neighbourhoods. A lot of funds are available (about 132 million euros have been allocated so far) and both old and new residents have great expectations: the people that have been living around the industries (many of them former workers) for a long time, and the new residents of the area, hope that this one time opportunity also solves the chronic lack of public services in these suburbs.

Our commitment as Committee Dora Spina 3 was initiated by reading some of the original plans of Spina 3: we read about huge and very tall buildings, the new Catholic cathedral, and many supermarkets, but no new public buildings, except a primary school, which today is still to be projected.
Also, at the centre of all this concrete area, the Dora Park would be the “final touch”. It is difficult, though, to imagine it as an area rich with greenery, because of the wide block of concrete covering a part of the river: this block of concrete was meant to support the buildings of the ironworks and it is still there, even if the former owner was committed to remove it, but he hasn’t yet. So it is still there to affect the quality, the look and the integrity of a great part of the park.

In the meantime, thousands of residents are moving into to the Spina 3 new houses (more than 10,000 are waiting to enter their new properties) and more will come to work in the new post-industrial activities allocated in Spina 3.
It is therefore more and more urgent to adjust to the increased needs of the population. This must be done more quickly than it is actually being done: public schools, transport, sporting sites, post offices, meeting centres, cultural centres for young and old people, etc.

We also proposed the creation of a museum about the history of the workers and industries of the site, which is also the history of the social struggles, of the Unions and of the Resistance movement against the fascist dictatorship, as we deem it necessary to transfer this memory to the next generations.

We think that, after having fostered, in the first phase of the plan, the economical interests of the various builders, (private or cooperative), it is necessary now to give priority to the needs of the old and new residents of this part of Turin.

We therefore suggest to the people of Spina 3 and the neighbourhood that they self-organize and also participate in the meetings and in the activities of our committee. We cannot be content with the institutional committee, named ‘Parco Dora’, which has meanwhile been constituted by the Municipal Administration in 2006 and is mostly composed of public administrators and private builders.

Since its foundation, our volunteer committee has intervened with respect to the various environmental problems (for example the dust from numerous yards and demolition works, the cutting down of trees, the quality and equipment of the future park, etc.) and has participated in various meetings with environmental associations.

We have organized two demonstrations in favour of starting work on the construction of the four year- delayed day hospital that will be located in a part of the former building of the Superga factory. We have also participated in the only two public meetings about Spina 3 held at the Town Council, to make our proposals.

Lastly, we have collected more than 550 signatures on a petition in favour of the ancient neighbourhood of Giachino and Tesso streets and we have distributed a questionnaire asking the new Spina 3 residents for their opinions and proposals. The results of this set of questions are available for everybody to be read at www.comitatodoraspina3.it ; we have requested a meeting with the 4th and 5th Municipality of the town, which are, or could be, the people to refer to for such issues.

One of the first results of our activity can be considered the new primary school opened “temporarily” in September 2007 in the new houses, which the official Spina 3 project had not previously provided, and also an increasing interest for the social issues of the area .

On our website you can find our letters and documents, a brief history (from our point of view) of the Spina 3 project, plenty of declarations, and some “before” and “after” pictures, of the site.

For questions and information, write to info@comitatodoraspina3.it