Locals buy ‘haunted’ Venice island known for horrific experiments in plan to ban tourists

A group of more than 4,500 residents of Venice chipped in to buy a “haunted” island that once housed an asylum and a hospital for quarantined plague victims — to keep tourists away.

The local investors are now due to take over the 18.5-acre island of Poveglia on Aug. 1 with a 99-year lease that will turn it into an urban park for Venetians that is strictly off limits to foreigners visiting the historic city, according to a report by CNN.

The spooky island sits on the southern end of the Venice lagoon.

“It wasn’t just outrage, it was psychologically traumatic to realize that the city could be broken up and sold to the highest bidder, without a starting price, without even a plan,” Patrizia Veclani, who formed the group Poveglia per Tutti, or “Poveglia for Everyone,” told the outlet.

“It’s as if Rome were to decide to sell the Trevi Fountain,” Veclani said. “The island would never have been as popular as other places, but keeping this small space just for Venetians is a victory.”

Poveglia’s haunted history dates back to 421 AD, when it served as a Roman military base. It was later a farming and fishing community before it was used to house victims of the bubonic plague when it broke out in the 18th Century, the report said.

At least 160,000 plague victims are believed to be buried there.

In the 19th Century, the island was converted into an asylum for the mentally ill, with experimental treatments and abusive conditions reportedly ran rampant, the outlet said.

Poveglia has been uninhabited since the asylum shut down in 1968, and today it is heavily overgrown with brush and woods with a large rabbit population surrounding 15 abandoned hospital buildings.

Ghost hunters have since dubbed the island haunted, and it was featured in TV’s “Ghost Adventures.”

However, the island was put up for auction in 2014, and recent rumors suggested a private developer would end up buying it and adding yet another tourist attraction in a city weary of tourists.

Alarmed, Venice Mayor Luigi Brugnaro organized a group to buy the island for $600,000, but their effort failed to get approval from the state and Poveglia’s fate remained in limbo.

However, Veclani’s group banded together and landed the lease for $539,000.

“The island was made famous by foreigners who were looking for something to exploit,” Massimo Pera, a member of the group, told CNN. “The memories of the island are steeped in pain, but we will transform it into a place of joy.”