Lisbon City Council is willing to transfer municipal land and buildings to housing cooperatives on condition that they guarantee that part of the units are rented at controlled costs, in accordance with the rules of the Affordable Income Program (AIP).
The Municipal Councillor for Housing takes advantage of this Wednesday to vote on a proposal that aims to give “a new lease of life to cooperative housing” and, along the way, help the municipality solve one of the most serious problems it faces: the shortage of housing at prices compatible with the incomes of a large part of the Portuguese middle class. The city of Lisbon is therefore seeking to create a route to housing at prices below those currently on the market.
As proposed by Councillor Paula Marques: on the one hand, the municipality cedes its property to build or rehabilitate real estate in Lisbon and on the other hand, the cooperatives reserve some dwellings for the PRA. The Lisbon City Councillor said: “In order to overcome this housing crisis, it is essential to regulate the housing market in Lisbon and Portugal, to increase public supply and to bring together several partners who can help to fill the remaining gaps”.
This proposal for rent regulation in Lisbon does not define the percentage of dwellings that should be allocated to the PRA, but allocation is compulsory in all operations promoted by cooperatives involving more than ten dwellings. Only operations that the local authority considers “small” (i.e. less than ten dwellings) are exempt from this obligation.
In operations involving PRAs, it is the co-operative that collects the rents but it is the board that selects the tenants according to the rules of the programme. These will be similar to those already used under the Conventional Income Program, where interested parties submit to a random draw, all on an equal footing. The only condition for access to these price-regulated housing units is that the rent should not exceed 40% of the monthly household income.
This proposal by Lisbon City Council comes about two months after the Government approved a legal amendment that allows housing cooperatives to extend their activity to the rehabilitation of real estate, with fiscal and financial support from the State if the housing is sold or rented at controlled costs.
Paula Marques says, in the text leading up to Wednesday’s public assembly, that she intends to “give priority to the rehabilitation and use of municipal real estate assets”, “reintroduce tenant cooperatives” and “give priority to collective ownership or co-ownership”. In all modalities – individual sale, right of use, collective ownership or lease – the autarchy establishes that each house built according to this model “must be intended for the permanent housing of the cooperatives”.
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