PS and JPP announce Madeira agreement

The government will create a legal regime for the “semi-automatic release of vacant public properties” on the market for housing or other relevant projects, which will be carried out jointly with municipalities, it was announced today.

Following an extraordinary meeting of the Council of Ministers, Presidential Minister António Leitán Amaro announced that the executive would put an end to the forced rentals provided for in the Mais Habitação program of the previous socialist government and which he had already declared his intention to withdraw.

“This is a new regime in which local initiative makes it possible to expedite, identify and make available upon restoration, whether for housing or other appropriate public purposes, so many hundreds of public properties in the state that are currently lying idle, while so many people without housing or houses that are too expensive,” the minister said.

Leitan Amaro said that municipalities would have to “voluntarily”, alone or together with private developers, identify empty or underutilized public properties and then submit to the state, namely through Estamo, a project to be used “for public purposes that fit within the responsibilities municipality and can be implemented by the people.”

The government official stressed that this “green path” for local authorities is voluntary, and each project developed “must be the responsibility” of the municipality and aimed at a public purpose.

“Therefore, if we want to anticipate this issue, it is not suitable for real estate speculation or for the construction of luxury housing, because this is clearly not a destination that is the responsibility of municipalities,” he stressed.

If the management of the proposed properties is transferred to Estamo, it can only object if the project presented by the municipality is not in the public interest or if an imminent public project already exists for the property.

The new regime, a local initiative, will expedite the use of thousands of public properties in the state that are not currently being used for public housing or other projects, he added.

“Affordable housing will naturally be given preference and the bulk of these proposed uses will be financed from the resources of the project itself. This does not in the least eliminate the responsibility of the state for bringing public property to the market or for solving the housing crisis, which has been aggravated by years of incorrect or unimplemented policies,” he emphasized.