This paper highlights the potential for enhancing the social impact generated by Integrated Area Projects (PIAs), an innovative urban planning tool unique to Italy, introduced by the City of Turin under the Dehors Regulation (No. 388). PIAs aim to improve urban identity, revitalize commercial fabric, strengthen competitive dynamics, promote local economic development, boost tourism, and enhance the safety of designated territory. They serve as dual-purpose tools for managing public land use and implementing urban redevelopment measures through actions and interventions in strategically significant urban zones. PIAs hold relevance in the current transition phase from a period of extensive deregulation of public land use— primarily driven by pandemic-related legislation affecting food and beverage establishments—to the necessary return of a new equilibrium in public space usage. The innovative nature of PIAs lies in their flexible co-design mechanisms, which can follow a top-down approach, where the Public Administration identifies intervention areas, or a bottom-up approach, where local business owners, guided by participatory co-design principles and supported by trade associations, express the need for a regulatory tool. This paper presents the current state of PIAs by examining established, ongoing, and developmental PIAs and addressing methodological aspects, illustrating the co-design process, highlighting the strengths and weaknesses of the participatory model. Furthermore, it explores how impact assessment approaches can complement the structuring of PIAs, enhancing their currently unexpressed potential in terms of social outcomes and broader impacts. Finally, it will outline a framework for developing a social impact assessment model based on the participatory approach.