Building plot, 17847 m²

Collesano, Palermo (province)

If you have been considering the idea of buying a patch of land in Sicily and building your own home, we have a wide range of plots which would be perfect for the purpose. As you take a look at Plot Dispenza, though make sure you keep in mind one absolutely fundamental difference. This is buildable land, waiting for a development on a larger scale.

99% of plots like this which become available in Sicily are designated as 'ex-agricultural', known in documents as 'class E'. Plot Dispenza, however, has been designated as 'class C', which is buildable land, designed to help with the expansion of a town or village.

We'll go into more detail when we talk about the potential of this sea-view buildable land in Sicily, but in the simplest terms, this means that the buyer of Plot Dispenza can build up to six hundred square metres of new home on the land. This doesn't have to be one huge property but can be a number of smaller homes. This opens up an incredible range of potential to build private homes for resale, a complex for a holiday village, a private community or any number of other possibilities.

The estate, 17,840m2 in size, is an open stretch of hillside with fabulous views of the Tyrrhenian Sea, just five kilometres to the north. In the foothills of the Madonie Natural Park, it falls in the municipality of Collesano, one of our perennial 'blue chip' top picks for international buyers in Sicily.


The Property
At present gently-sloping pastureland, home to only a small flock of sheep, the 1.76 hectare plot is directly adjacent to the SP9 provincial road which connects Collesano with Campofelice di Roccella. This road runs broadly south-north, and the plot is on the western side, although a bend in the road means that it actually faces north, onto a stretch of street heading west-east. This means there is direct access onto the property from the main road – only a short internal driveway will be needed.

There is no more than 20m2 of elevation change across the entirety of Plot Dispenza, meaning that it should be easy to find multiple positions on which to build. Although not steep, the grassy land does fall away slightly towards the road, meaning that views of the Tyrrhenian Sea are wonderful from almost every spot on the land. It would be possible to build multiple sea-view villas here, perhaps with roof terraces to best take advantage of the scenic position.

Although mostly uncultivated, there are around thirty mature olive trees in irregular clusters around the estate. These should generate a modest yield of oil, nothing on an industrial scale of course, but they are testament to the growing conditions of the topsoil on this sunny patch of the island's north coast.

The ruins of an old shepherd's cottage are present, a tiny structure of 35m2. It might be possible to salvage some traces of the old masonry to connect your new properties with the land's rustic past.

Plot Dispenza benefits from both a connection to the municipal water main, and from a private source of spring water. You'll be able to access the electricity grid without significant hassle, as the area is already cabled. The only amenity for which you'll have to plan privately is sewage, where Imhoff tanks or trenches will be needed.


Surroundings
The road from Collesano down to the Tyrrhenian sea at Campofelice is one of the most in-demand areas for international buyers in the east of the Palermo province. Within a radius of less than 200m, we have sold land to an Austrian client who is building a villa, a German who has moved here with his entire family, an American family who now run a B&B.

Collesano itself is something of a rarity in Sicily – a small town that has unambiguously retained its traditional local character, but also welcomed a large and diverse variety of overseas arrivals. There is a friendly, semi-organised group who will meet up regularly for a coffee in the town square, or a meal to celebrate a local or international festival. This is a fantastic place to live if you're not yet a fluent Italian speaker, one of the best semi-rural markets outside the far pricier tourist hotspots like Taormina or Cefalù.

Home to around five thousand residents, divided between the hilltop town and the surrounding countryside, it is locally famous for its historic castle, a distinctive style of majolica ceramics and its location along the route of the world's first motor sport rally, the legendary Targa Florio. A museum dedicated to the history of this storied annual event is found in the centre of town. We identified Collesano as one of our top picks for buying real estate in Sicily, and if you're considering buying land or a property here you won't want to miss our feature-length profile of the town and its beautiful surroundings.

The nearest beach is just 10 minutes away, the stunning seafront of Cefalù can be reached in under half an hour, and the hills of the Madonie Natural Park are right on your doorstep. The closest airport, in Sicily's great capital city, Palermo, is just an hour to the west.


Potential
The exact significance of the 'Zone C' designation we mentioned above is that construction is allowed on a ratio of 1m2:0.1m3. In other words, you can build 1784 cubic metres of habitable structure on your sea-view buildable land. In Sicily, 2.70m is the minimum ceiling height permissible by building codes, but let's assume you're working with an average of 3m: that's almost exactly 600 square metres of floor space.

We won't run through all the permutations, but unlike an 'agricultural' plot that doesn't have to be taken up by a single building. So while you would of course be welcome to build a three storey, ten-bedroom mega villa on a 200m2 footprint, there are numerous more practical ideas (we kind of assume that if you're in the market for one of those you have your butler scouting locations on your behalf!).

To help you visualise the potential here, let's look at a couple of concrete examples. We recently helped a client with the purchase of a holiday complex just up the road from Plot Dispenza, only 4km to the north, to be precise. There, ten holiday homes, a mixture of studio apartments sleeping two guests and one-bedroom properties sleeping four, cover a total of just 400m2. So you could get to fifteen on this plot.

This complex was an incredibly popular destination for families from all over Europe, thanks to the sea view and its proximity to Cefalù. With a swimming pool, paddock and an orchard (the plot was admittedly rather larger than this), it sold at the end of 2023 for over €600,000. You can see the potential for return on your investment is vast!

Alternatively, there are many nice villas on the market with around 150m2 of internal space, which usually translates to a three bedroom home. An example of this kind of villa in Collesano, with a nearly identical location, changed hands through our site for over €200,000. Building four nice homes with gardens would absolutely be possible on a plot of this size – you would be able to give each around 4,000m2 of outdoor space.

Other uses for the land could be realised with a lower initial outlay. You could build a high-end 'glamping' campsite with a significant capacity to generate income using cabins rather than bricks and mortar. Or you could run the entire estate as a retirement community or timeshare project. The potential is tremendous.

Just about the only significant downside of buying Zone C land, aside from an inevitably slightly higher price tag, is that the procedure for obtaining building permission is different to what you'd find agricultural land. It takes about a year and a half to start work. This is because the project must also be approved by the City Council.

However, the profit at the end of the journey could make it many times more than worth your patience and effort. It's obviously hard to calculate construction costs before designs are in place, but we usually advise buyers in this situation to have around €2-3,000/m2 available in their budget. In addition to the liveable spaces you would need to add some driveway, for around €20,000, and a nice swimming pool will set you back about €30,000.

If you do the maths on that, with 600m2 of building to manage, and look at the sale prices for those comparable properties, you begin to understand the incredible potential for return on investment represented by Plot Dispenza. Remember too, that new residents to Sicily can cash in on some lucrative tax breaks on pension or professional income.

If property development in Sicily would be a new challenge for you, we can offer a comprehensive project management service to guide you right through the challenge. Our after-sales team can help with everything from finding the most trusted professionals to design your project and deal with the legalities, to taking care of maintenance while the finished homes are on the market, or managing a holiday complex. Talk to us today about how we could help you capitalise on this fantastic plot of sea-view, buildable land in Sicily.