Lisbon Accounts for 2/3s of the 11,500 New Beds in University Residences

26 February 2019

Portugal’s National Student Housing Plan aims to renovate and convert more than 250 properties for use as student housing. The government declined to state how many new beds would be available for the coming school year.

The city of Lisbon will provide 4,720 new beds for university students over the next four years, according to the National Student Housing Plan, which the government published this Tuesday in the Diário da República. In addition to the new beds in Lisbon – which would triple the existing supply in the city – student residences are to be built in several other municipalities in the region, including Almada (1,259 new beds), Cascais (430), Amadora (260) and Oeiras. The Metropolitan Area of ​​the capital will account for roughly 60% of the new supply of student housing.

Surveys carried out by the Portuguese government last year identified Lisbon as the city facing the greatest difficulties with student accommodations. In addition to inflation in the traditional real estate market, there has been little growth in the supply of university residences. No institution of higher education in Lisbon has space for more than 10% of its non-local students.

The recently published National Student Housing Plan covers 42 counties in Portugal. After Lisbon, most of the new beds will be created in the Central region (17%), especially in the cities of Aveiro and Coimbra, followed by the North with 14.3%.

New beds in Porto

Six hundred and thirteen new beds are planned in Porto, a surprising number considering that the city is subject to the same pressures as Lisbon and has the same problems with its supply of student housing – with enough beds to cover just 11.5% of non-local students. Contrary to the situation in the capital, there are no districts in the Metropolitan Area of ​​Porto with buildings included in the housing plan.

This fact “does not really worry” the president of the Academic Federation of Porto, João Pedro Videira, given that the city is designing other solutions to respond to the lack of student residences, such as the conversion of former Monte Pedral barracks, which will be renovated by the municipality.

The plan also provides for improvements to the existing 2,964 beds. Of these, one third are located in the city of Porto, with special emphasis on the construction at the Alberto Amaral residence, a building originally inaugurated 15 years ago, which currently has one-hundred unused beds due to problems with structural issues.

Mr Videira sees the National Student Housing Plan as “a breath of fresh air” in the Portuguese state’s response to one of the main problems facing university students but believes that “very few” new homes will be available by the beginning of the coming school year. The presidents of the Coordinating Council of the Polytechnic Institutes, Pedro Dominguinhos, and of the Council of Rectors of Portuguese Universities, Fontainhas Fernandes agree: “The most optimistic scenario would see construction beginning in September.”

While the works are in progress, the government has created a transitional regime that allows higher education institutions to negotiate housing solutions with charities, other third sector institutions and also youth hostels. The Left Block proposed the measure in a draft resolution in Parliament that was one of the few decrees approved during a debate on higher education two weeks ago.

Original Story: Público – Samuel Silva

Translation and editing: Richard Turner