The decision is only dependent on approval at a meeting of the Municipal Assembly, which is not expected to occur before the entry into force of the new AL law decided by the Government of Luís Montenegro, which removes powers from condominiums to prevent establishments in buildings and takes effect from this Friday.
The vote at the chamber meeting included two proposals, one from the PS and the other from the Novos Tempos coalition, with the same objective: to prevent new licenses. In a model in which the most voted candidate would go to the second round, the socialist won.
The Socialist Party's proposal, argued in general terms, that when a 5% share of AL establishments in the city is reached, compared to the total number of housing units, the granting of new licenses will automatically be suspended. At this moment, in the capital, and according to figures revealed by the PS, the percentage is 7.5%, which in practice, prevents the emergence of more AL in the city.
The coalition that leads the municipality proposed something that the president, Carlos Moedas, called “simpler”: a total and unconditional ban on new Local Accommodation establishments.
In the first vote, PS, Livre, Citizens for Lisbon, Bloco de Esquerda and PCP voted in favor of the socialists' proposal, which passed to a second round and ended up being approved unanimously.
As ECO/Local Online reported earlier, Carlos Moedas decided to take a proposal to the chamber meeting to suspend, for six months, new licenses, seeking, within that period, to create the regulation. The president of the municipality highlighted the galloping growth of AL properties in the second decade of the century. Between 2010 and 2019, the city saw an increase from 500 to 19 thousand units.
“What I propose is a total suspension, zero new registrations of AL establishment throughout the municipality of Lisbon until a regulation comes into force”, he said, during the discussion that preceded the vote. “I think it's the simplest. As we have alternative proposals, I hope that this one, which is extremely simple, just the suspension of authorisation for all new registrations, can be agreed upon by everyone. And then we will bring a proposal with new regulations, and then we can discuss the limits that we think are necessary to curb this amount of registrations”.