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Cruz Vermelha Neighbourhood to Be Demolished in 2019 After Resettlements
28 July 2017
The Lisbon city council estimated today that the complete demolition of the Cruz Vermelha (Red Cross) neighbourhood in the parish of Lumiar will take place in 2019, after the resettlement of the current residents in new or rehabilitated dwellings.
In a private meeting, the municipal executive (composed of the PSD, PCP and CDS-PP and by the PS majority, which includes the Citizens for Lisbon movement) unanimously approved a 12.3-million-euro contract for the construction of 130 homes where the residents of Cruz Vermelha will be relocated, followed by the complete demolition of the area.
Speaking to the Lusa news agency, Housing councillor Paula Marques said that “the neighbourhood will only be demolished after the resettlement, to either new homes or rehabilitated dwellings,” a process that will be completed “according to needs of” the residents.
The municipal government explained that where residents prefer to be relocated to rehabilitated dwellings, the city council will check nearby vacant municipal houses that may be undergoing renovations.
Ms. Marques indicated that there will be no temporary re-housing of these residents, recalling that the municipality commissioned Gebalis, a social leasing management company for Lisbon’s municipalities, to carry out maintenance work on buildings in the area.
The approved proposal, to which Lusa had access, explains that “Cruz Vermelha is a degraded and decharacterized public space, with buildings presenting serious constructive pathologies” with “degradation of structural zones and the deterioration of common spaces.”
At the same time, there are “profound security problems related to crime in the area.”
According to the document, the municipality studied “three intervention possibilities,” which were based on the rehabilitation of the seven existing lots, on the rehabilitation of some lots and demolition of the remaining ones or on the complete demolition of the neighbourhood.
“Having examined the possibilities, along with their benefits and disadvantages, it can only be concluded that the complete demolition of that neighbourhood and the resettlement of the families in other properties can put an end to the reigning isolation and insecurity that is endemic to the area,” the document stated.
For this reason, the municipality decided to relocate the 296 residents of the neighbourhood to the Alta area of Lisbon, in the parish of Santa Clara.
The solution found is the construction of 130 dwellings for joint resettlement, which will allow “the continuity of neighbourhood relations, mutual aid and proximity that exist in the current neighbourhood among the older residents, an aspect of the area much-appreciated by the population in consultative meetings that took place in the preparatory study of the intervention proposal.”
“The new location is less than a kilometre away,” noted Paula Marques, pointing out that the area’s accessibility (in terms of transportation, for example) had been demonstrated in meetings with the residents.
The contract will have a base price of € 12,354,821.8 (already including VAT) and a fixed implementation period of 600 days (approximately 20 months).
Asked about the future use of the neighbourhood space, created in the early 1980s, Paula Marques said that “the idea is to transform it into a public leisure space,” since the square there was recently upgraded.
Original Story: Diário de Notícias – Lusa
Photo Credit: GLOBAL IMAGENS