In the motion signed by the BE councillor in Lisbon, Manuel Grilo, to which Lusa had access and which should be presented on 12 March, in a private meeting of the municipal executive, it is defended that the municipality urges the Government “to proceed with the survey of vacant properties acquired in connection with the granting of gold visas”.
In addition, and under the current legal framework, “the requisition mechanisms for public purposes must be considered in order to reinforce the housing supply in the municipality and, in such cases, define the obligation for these properties to be leased, within the scope of the Affordable Income Programme”.
In the text it is mentioned that, from 2012 until the end of 2017, the municipality of Lisbon concentrated 47 percent of gold visas (regime of Residence Permits for Investment), about 2,423 visas, linked to real estate.
“Despite the opacity of the data related to this process, the bias in the price per square metre and the lease through real estate speculation, produced by the easy and guaranteed business of gold visas, is recognised today,” reads the motion signed by councillor of BE, a party that has a city governance agreement with the PS.
The statement continues by saying that “selling Portuguese citizenship in exchange
for an investment of
€500,000, has introduced unacceptable discrimination”.
The average cost per square metre in Lisbon is “€3,205, double that of Porto and triple the national average”, with “these biases in house prices producing unacceptable forms of exclusion, pushing new and old out of the city, when renting a T2 exceeds €900 per month, which is unaffordable for a young couple with an average salary”, is highlighted.
In November, the Lisbon Municipal Assembly approved the new Municipal Regulation on the Right to Housing, which stipulates, among other measures, the creation of an affordable income programme aimed at young people and the middle classes.
According to the new regulation, which establishes the rules of the Affordable Income Programme (PRA), housing prices “are defined in such a way that each person and each family spends a maximum of 30 percent of their net salary on rent”, explained the mayor, in early July, adding that the effort rate is reduced by “two percentage points for each dependent child”.