Lisbon City Council unanimously decided this week to formalise the non-increase in the value of municipal housing rents during this year, a measure that has an expected budgetary impact of 1.9 million euros.

“We ended up formalising this moment because it seems important to us to affirm it, and even this year, although it seems that the context is favorable, the context is improving, the inflationary peak is stabilising, we are still experiencing the sequence of enormous inflation and, therefore, families are still experiencing this difficulty”, stated Housing Councilor, Filipa Roseta (PSD).

At the council's public meeting, the councilor recalled that the municipality implemented the measure in 2023, as part of the fight against inflation, which had a budgetary impact of 719 thousand euros.

For this year, the measure has a predicted impact on the municipal budget of 1.9 million euros, indicated Filipa Roseta, remembering that for this year the ceiling for updating the value of rents was set at 6%.

According to the councilor, the council continues to automatically check family income every three years, but has not increased the value of rent. Although it does not increase, the council updates the value of rents in the event of a reduction in family income.

Asked by PCP councilor Gonçalo Francisco about whether the measure also applies to non-housing spaces in the municipality, Filipa Roseta confirmed that it did, adding that it applies to the universe of 23 thousand rental contracts for municipal assets, including affordable rent, in which the Median family income is 900 euros/month.

“For these families, even 10 euros, even five euros, makes a difference,” said the Housing Councillor.

The Councillor for Cidadãos Por Lisboa (elected by the PS/Livre coalition) Rui Franco questioned why the proposal was presented in the middle of the year, considering that “it is very strange that it only comes now” and accusing the PSD/CDS-PP leadership of “poor management”.

Filipa Roseta justified the delay in presenting the proposal by framing it within the Finance department.

Regarding the executive's investment in housing, PS councilor Inês Drummond accused the PSD/CDS-PP leadership, which has governed the city for three years, of not having built “any new houses” yet, lamenting “the anemic state in which it has dealt with the housing problem”, “being ruined all the time”, and in which “it suspended more housing projects than those it launched”.

In response, Filipa Roseta said that when PSD/CDS-PP took office, in October 2021, the council had a total of 704 homes under construction out of the 6,000 promised by the previous president of the municipal executive, Fernando Medina (PS), namely 170 in the municipal neighborhoods, 256 in Entrecampos and 278 under rehabilitation.


987 homes under construction

At the moment, the council has 987 homes under construction, of which 747 are new construction and 240 are undergoing rehabilitation, and has 1,750 in the project, according to the Housing councillor.

“The construction schedule is doubling, so for the city it is good news because many more houses will be built,” she added.

Socialist Inês Drummond also criticised the PSD/CDS-PP position on local accommodation , namely the revocation of the extraordinary contribution approved on Friday in parliament, accusing the mayor of Lisbon, Carlos Moedas (PSD), of being “ blind and deaf” regarding the urgency of removing houses from local accommodation and returning them to housing use.

“If there is a mayor who did not increase local accommodation in Lisbon, it was me”, responded Carlos Moedas, indicating that in the PS executives, local accommodation increased from 500 to 18,000 and “there was a socialist policy of increasing local accommodation”.

The PSD mayor also said that when he took office, local accommodation was already suspended in certain areas of the city, a measure that remains in place, and a regulation was created.

This document, he added, has not yet been approved by the decision of the opposition, because it wanted to first assess the Municipal Housing Charter.