Lisbon, Oct. 25, 2024 (Lusa) - The Lisbon city council on Friday approved the Municipal Housing Charter, proposed by the PSD/CDS-PP leadership and which received amendments from PS, BE, Livre and Cidadãos Por Lisboa, forecasting an investment of €900 million over the next 10 years.
In a private meeting of the municipal executive, the first Lisbon Municipal Housing Charter (CMHL) was made possible only with the votes in favour of the ‘Novos Tempos’ coalition (PSD/CDS-PP/MPT/PPM/Aliança), which governs without an absolute majority, and the abstention of PS and PCP.
Although the final document incorporates part of the opposition's proposals, after voting by points, the councillors from BE, Livre and Cidadãos Por Lisboa (elected by the PS/Livre coalition) voted against.
This CMHL proposal, which will now have to be submitted to the Lisbon Municipal Assembly, is the result of the inclusion of changes resulting from the public consultation process and aims to guarantee a housing policy for the next decade.
"A historic political commitment has been reached to invest more than €900 million in housing," said the mayor of Lisbon, Carlos Moedas (PSD), quoted in a statement, as part of the approval of the proposal, which was due to take place a fortnight ago but was postponed due to a lack of consensus with the opposition parties.
Despite enabling the proposal by abstaining, the PS councillors considered the CMHL to be ‘a flop’, registering "serious disagreements" with the document, as there are "flaws and omissions that have not been corrected", including the revision of the Municipal Master Plan (PDM), the identification of the "real housing shortage in the city" and the presentation of "not very rigorous and reliable" figures.
According to the PSD/CDS-PP leadership, CMHL is establishing "an ambitious political commitment to increase the supply of housing in the city", with investment for the next decade, allowing it, for example, to "build 3,000 new state-owned homes by 2028, urbanise stagnant public land, such as Casal do Pinto and Vale de Santo António, and allocate land with capacity for 500 homes in a cooperative".
Carlos Moedas emphasised the commitment to "increase and improve the supply of state-owned housing, reduce asymmetries in access to housing and regenerate the forgotten city".
Housing councillor Filipa Roseta (PSD) said that CMHL plans to implement 35 measures for "an audacious housing policy for the next 10 years", which includes the rehabilitation of empty homes and the renovation of municipal neighbourhoods, as well as "a system based on private and partnership pillars for the provision of affordable housing".
"We have mapped out a construction potential of 7,400 homes, 3,000 of which will be completely publicly invested. We will make the remaining 4,000 potential homes available to construction partners," said Filipa Roseta, pointing out that the Cooperativas 1ª Habitação Lisboa programme is already underway, with an open tender for the construction of cooperative housing in the parish of Lumiar.
According to the PS councillors, Carlos Moedas' leadership “ignored public participation” and “only accepted opposition proposals at the last minute”, which is the main reason why “Lisbon has a fragile and limited Housing Charter, instead of the strategic and guiding document that the city so desperately needs”.
Justifying their abstention vote by accepting part of their proposals, the Socialists emphasised the inclusion in the CMHL of "more regulation for short-term rental accommodation, restoring the maximum ceiling of 5% in the city"; a quota of up to 25% of the total number of dwellings for affordable rent; the bringing forward to 2024/2025 of projects for affordable rent left ready by the previous mandate in Restelo, Benfica, Ajuda and Parque das Nações, which had been postponed until 2033; and "the elimination and correction of graphs and data that distorted CML's construction figures, ignoring more than 5,600 municipally-owned dwellings".
"Despite its name, the document does not constitute a true Housing Charter, since it only looks at municipal housing and ignores the potential for construction both on state land and by private individuals, not even trying to mobilise it through incentives and tax benefits," pointed out the PS, noting that CMHL also "does not identify the city's true housing shortage, considering that around 10,000 homes (the number of applicants for municipal housing programmes) would solve Lisbon's housing shortage".
The PS councillor also pointed out that, despite "a blatant and immediate need for construction", there is investment being "pushed back to 2033, which raises serious doubts about Carlos Moedas' ability to implement the PRR [Recovery and Resilience Plan]".
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