The houses will be built by rehabilitating a building and constructing a new one on municipal land. The investment amounts to 5.29 million.
Lisbon City Council decided this Wednesday (April 3) to put out to public tender the construction of an affordable housing building on Estrada de Benfica, in the parish of São Domingos de Benfica, with 27 homes, for an investment of 5.29 million euros.
The contract is planned for the building/land located at Estrada de Benfica, no. 410 to 416, where it is intended to “promote the rehabilitation of the existing building, as well as its interconnection with a new building, to be constructed, with a total of 27 dwellings”, reads the proposal signed by the councillor for Housing and Municipal Works, Filipa Roseta (PSD).
At a private meeting of the municipal executive, the proposal was approved by a majority, with the abstention of the councillors from Cidadãos Por Lisboa (elected by the PS/Livre coalition) and the votes in favor of the others, namely the PSD/CDS-PP leadership, PS, PCP, Livre and BE, said a municipal source.
The proposal is part of the objective of increasing the supply of affordable municipal apartments in the city center, which was defined as a priority by the current municipal executive, under the presidency of Carlos Moedas (PSD), through the Intervention Plan for Dispersed Buildings (PIED), which includes a set of properties owned by the Lisbon City Council (CML) “in different states of disrepair and which will therefore be rehabilitated”.
At the start of the current mandate, in October 2021, the city of Lisbon had around 2,000 vacant dwellings, of which 1,400 were managed by the municipal company Gebalis and 600 by dispersed municipal assets. In the last two and a half years, the municipality has rehabilitated more than 1,000 vacant dwellings, according to local authority figures.
What will the affordable homes on Benfica Road look like?
The contract on Estrada de Benfica proposes the construction of a collective housing building with eight floors above ground, with 14 two-bedroom dwellings and one one-bedroom dwelling, and “the partial rehabilitation/reconstruction of the building with numbers 410-416, which will now have 12 dwellings (two studio apartments + 10 one-bedroom dwellings) and a store”, according to the proposal.
“This intervention provides for a common entrance to the two buildings (on the first floor), which has a semi-outdoor covered area and an outdoor uncovered area, and it is on this common first floor that the technical areas and storage rooms for all the fractions are located, as well as a one-bedroom fireplace,” the document states.
On the ground floor, a basement (common to both buildings) is planned, with 24 car parking spaces and technical areas, “keeping the green area, which currently exists at the back, as a green area for public access”.
The contract will be awarded “through a public tender”, which implies the appointment of a jury, which will be chaired by the director of the Municipal Housing Department of the Municipal Maintenance and Conservation Directorate, João Vargas.
The basic price of the contract is 4,999,033.43 euros, plus VAT at the legal rate of 6%, amounting to 299,942.01 euros, “making a total of 5,298,975.44 euros”, according to the Housing councillor’s proposal, indicating that this amount is spread over the financial years 2024, 2025 and 2026.
“The deadline for the work is 610 days, with a minimum of 550 days, plus 365 days for the maintenance of the green spaces,” the document states.
Justifying their abstention vote, the Citizens for Lisbon councillor said that the project presented “is not the most appropriate”, because it could provide more homes.
Currently, the 17-member Lisbon City Council executive includes seven elected members of the “Novos Tempos” coalition (PSD/CDS-PP/MPT/PPM/Aliança) – who are the only ones with portfolios and who govern without an absolute majority – three from the PS, two from the PCP, three from Cidadãos Por Lisboa (elected by the PS/Livre coalition), one from Livre and one from BE.
