Lisbon City Council approved the Lisbon Municipal Housing Charter, with ‘an ambitious political commitment to increase the supply of housing in the city and inaugurates a decade of strong investment in housing policy’. The capital's mayor, Carlos Moedas, says that ‘a historic political commitment has been reached to invest more than 900 million euros in housing, making it possible to build 3,000 new public houses by 2028’, reads the official website of Lisbon City Council.
The agreement will also make it possible to ‘urbanise stalled public land, such as Casal do Pinto and Vale de Santo António, and allocate land with capacity for 500 houses in a cooperative, among other essential measures,’ adds the Lisbon mayor.
For her part, Filipa Roseta, councillor for Housing and Municipal Works, says that ‘with the approval of this strategic document, Lisbon is equipped with an audacious housing policy for the next 10 years, which includes the rehabilitation of empty homes and launches a wave of renovation of municipal neighbourhoods, providing them with housing and energy conditions never before guaranteed’.
In addition to public housing, the Lisbon Municipal Housing Charter lays the foundations for a system based on the private and partnership pillars for affordable housing. ‘We've 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,’ emphasises Filipa Roseta, stressing the need to “significantly increase the number of affordable homes in Lisbon by taking advantage of this opportunity”.
The councillor adds that ‘we now have all the conditions to make a real shock to the housing supply, putting all municipal property with housing capacity to use, at the service of people and families’.
The document that has now been approved will be put to the vote in the Lisbon Municipal Assembly.