ANMP available for emergency affordable housing acceleration program

A The National Association of Portuguese Municipalities (ANMP) today defended in parliament the creation of an urgent program to accelerate housing at affordable costs, proving available for the “commitment” to help the country increase public housing.

In a hearing on the State Budget for 2027 (OE2027), Pedro Pimpão also reiterated an appeal to the Institute of Housing and Urban Rehabilitation (IHRU) to “be able, as soon as possible, to deal with payments to municipalities” concerning houses already completed under the Recovery and Resilience Plan (PRR) so that they “continue to be able to carry out their commitments in this matter”.

Pedro Pimpão answered a question by the deputy and former minister of the Socialist Housing Marina Gonçalves, who said that the PS received “several warnings for non-compliance, from the IHRU”, of payments to municipalities for works already executed.

“ What we stand for, which our country must assume, and its Members too, although it is not directly related to the State Budget, but also taking advantage of this opportunity, [is] there is an urgent programme of accelerating housing accessible to affordable costs in our country and we municipalities are available for this,” he said.

Pedro Pimpão stressed that ANMP has already expressed, including at a meeting last week with the President of the Republic and at several meetings with the Government, “concerns” and a “commitment” to help the country increase public housing, which, despite all the efforts that have been made, is still “relatively small, in the order of 2%”.

“There is an effort here to all of us and, once again, we respond to the call that has been made to us and we also make this commitment to help implement these funds and increase the public housing park in our country,” he said, stressing that on Tuesday ANMP watched “with attention” to the declaration to the country of the Prime Minister, after weeks of demonstrations and so-called campgrounds in Lisbon and Porto, which protest against the cost of housing, and which have already generated several police charges.

ANMP gave a positive opinion to the proposal for a State Budget for 2027, under discussion in the specialty in parliament, highlighting that it complies with the current local finance law (LFL), a slightly higher increase than 6% of financial transfer to municipalities.

However, it stresses that this is “a transitional budget”, taking into account the forecast revision of the LFL in 2027, to take effect in 2028.

Despite the positive opinion, ANMP has left some warnings about the document, such as the financial burden for municipalities associated with decentralization of competencies, especially in the area of education, arguing that an “effective assessment of the real costs of competencies” must be made in order to update values.

Another concern is related to the damage caused by the “storm train” of the beginning of the year, and applications for support from the Municipal Emergency Fund (FEM).

“ What we stand for is that financial support in these applications must evolve from 60 to 100%, just as our country has had other fire-related episodes,” Pedro Pimpão said.

The mayor stressed the need to extend the deadline for applications to the FEM, scheduled for 30 November, although the Minister of Territorial Cohesion has already assumed, in parliament, the extension of the deadline at least until 31 December.

The ANMP also argued that TGR, the Waste Management Rate that municipalities pay, should be “intally returned” to the chambers.

“ This would mean that it would increase our financial capacity to cope with the responsibilities we have in the area of urban waste management,” he said.

Previously, the legislation allowed municipalities to deduct what they pay for TGR in investments applied to the system, but a recent decree of law of October 27 makes this compensation of applications dependent.

ANMP also advocated reducing VAT on school meals and public lighting.

In legalist terms, he recalled the need for challenges of lega change such as the local finance law, the status of local elected representatives and local electoral law.