Porto: 88-House Neighbourhood to be Transformed into Local Tourist Accommodations

27 November 2017

It is increasingly difficult to find permanent housing in the centre of Portugal’s cities. And there are other problems in addition to this: elevated prices and the fact that most of the existing houses – or those in the process of reconstruction – are almost always destined for tourism and the local accommodation (AL) market. Evictions have gone from being an exception to the rule, and more and more residents are being expelled from the historic centres. The Tapada Quarter, in Porto – with 88 houses – is a further example: it was recently bought for conversion into ALs.

According to the Jornal de Notícias, which reported the development, is what the property investment management company Porto Baixa, which acquired the property earlier this month, intends to do with the property. The Tapada is one of the neighbourhoods of the Fontaínhas and has 88 small houses by the Guindais cliffside – where 50 inhabitants live in the 38 inhabited dwellings of the area. It is now known that the new owners, responsible for various renovations in downtown Porto, intend to rehabilitate the homes to transform them into tourist housing.

The plan has not been well received by the residents, who fear being “kicked” out of the neighbourhood. “Back when it when you had to do your necessities in a bucket, no one wanted to have anything to do with our neighbourhood,” said one resident, quoted by the Jornal de Notícias. Porto Baixa’s representative, in turn, guarantees that nothing will do ahead without prior consultation with the residents, noting, however, that the company did not buy the neighbourhood “to do charity.”

Original Story: Idealista

Translation: Richard Turner