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Lisbon City Council Announces Subsidised Homes with Rents Between 150 and 600 euros
8 April 2018
Fernando Medina says he will soon sign an agreement whereby real estate assets belonging to Social Security will be used in the affordable housing program starting next year.
The Lisbon City Council is expected to sign an agreement with Social Security to allocate the system’s real estate assets in the capital to the affordable rental program, with rents to be set between 150 and 600 euros, including flats and rooms for students.
In an interview with the Diário de Notícias and TSF, published on Sunday, the mayor of the city of Lisbon, Fernando Medina, announced that the municipality and Social Security “are working together so that Social Security’s assets in the city can be mobilised for use in the Accessible Rents Program,” aiming to “make housing in the city, including permanent housing and rooms for university students, available to more than 1,100 people.”
“These are truly affordable rents, calculated according to the families’ ability to pay” with “average values for studios and one-bedroom flats costing around 150/200 euros per month and, at the top, four-bedroom apartments can go for between 400 and 600 euros,” the mayor stated.
The most “exclusive areas in the city”, such as the Estados Unidos and República avenues, and areas such as Entrecampos, where Social Security owns ten buildings, are the target of the initiative.
“Overall, ten buildings in the prime and central areas of Lisbon will provide us with more than 200 flats and about 200 rooms for university students,” he said.
Mayor Medina noted that the Lisbon City Council intends to finalise the agreement “very soon,” and then to redevelop the properties.
The municipality will cover the costs of the development, “in an amount estimated at € 17 million.”
The goal is for the first homes or rooms to be made available next year, the mayor stated.
The Affordable Housing Program, launched in April 2016, provides for partnerships between the municipality and the private sector: while the first provides land and buildings that are owned by the municipality, the private sector would undertake construction.
Altogether, the program foresees the rental of 6,000 dwellings in 15 zones.
In the interview, Fernando Medina said that next week, the executive (majority-controlled by the PS) will meet to discuss and possibly approve the first contract, on the Rua de São Lázaro, which will be subsequently “awarded to a private investor which will undertake the redevelopment and the management of the enterprise.”
Asked about the controversy linked to the Lisbon Metro’s new circular line, Mayor Medina stated that the direct connections would be maintained.
According to the new expansion plan for the Metro, the Yellow line will connect Odivelas to Telheiras (with a change at Campo Grande), and the remaining stations that form part of this line (Cidade Universitária-Rato) will become part of the circular Green line.
“Today, some of the people who use this [Yellow] line are already transferring to be able to change to the Green line, so these people will not need to do this anymore,” Mr Medina stated.
The mayor also gave an account of the work that the municipality is doing in conjunction with the Portuguese government to expand the Red line to Amoreiras and Campo de Ourique.
As for the Constitutional Court’s overturn of the civil protection tax, under which the municipality will have to return a total of 58 million euros, Mayor Medina did not specify how the municipality will cover the amount lost, which had been destined to investments in the sector.
Still, he stressed that “the matter has been returned to the National Assembly,” which in his view should decide “how to finance an effective civil protection system in the country,” after the fires last year and after the prohibition of the municipal tax.
Original Story: Público / Lusa
Translation: Richard Turner