Cascais Chamber accused of giving millions in real estate “borlas”

As exemptions from large urban compensation to luxury enterprises in the municipality of Cascais are considered insulting and “pornographic” by opposition councilors in the executive, although the mayor justifies that it is based on a regulation.

“ Given that this represents a value that could have been invested in housing, in affordable public housing, it is particularly insulting”, commented to Lusa João Maria Jonet, on exemptions from the payment of high rates of urban compensation attributed by the House of Cascais to luxury enterprises.

In question are several “borlas” given by the municipality to real estate developers in the municipality and, according to the magazine Saturday, only between 2021 and 2016 totaled “10 million euros”.

“These benefits are pornographic. They're something you can't explain. And more, which is the only part that is important, which is what is the benefit Cascais and the Cascais receive by the House to exempt these companies from this payment?”, asked Lusa, socialist councilman João Ruivo.

For the leader of the Jonet – Cascais movement to Live, in the case of the exemption of the compensation fee to the enterprise Penha Longa Elite Villas, approved by the executive, but failed at the municipal assembly, “even the reason why the compensation should be paid is insulting”, because it is “an enterprise that cut down huge trees” and the impact study “concluded that there was no heritage to destroy”.

“ And then, when he has to pay one million and so much euros for compensation for not having built green spaces, nor does that pay,” added João Maria Jonet, although in this case located in the Sintra-Cascais Natural Park (PNSC) the exemption proposal of 1.2 million euros was rejected by the municipal opposition deputies, after the majority PSD/CDS-PP that governs the municipality abstains.

Although the exemption was based on a municipal tax and compensation regulation, for the opposition mayor “the regulation is not relevant” and “politicians have to be ashamed not to adopt these measures that nobody understands”.

On the very day of the municipal assembly, Jonet published a video in which he denounced the proposal for exemption from the “majority PSD-CDS-Enough, which governs the House of Cascais” in the PNSC and included a quote from the mayor, Nuno Piteira Lopes (PSD), explaining that it was “only and exclusively the fulfillment of a regulation that is in force”.

The regulation, added Piteira Lopes, “allows the promoter to make this request” and that the “camera takes the same measure, the same path as what has already been followed for the same type of requests, in the same type of situations”.

In the magazine’s accounting, since 2021, apart from the ones behind, there are the exemptions of 1.3 million for Poetikdiscovery in a hotel and apartments in Carcavelos, 1.1 million for Aquatechnica and an enterprise in Marginal, 1.3 million for Greatflags in a senior hotel and residence or 2.1 million on a CUF health campus.

But for João Maria Jonet, “it has already been 13 million by the way, at least” than it has been able to “identify since 2020”, which was previously “more or less equivalent to the value of free public transport” financed by the municipality in the municipality.

For his part, the socialist João Ruivo admitted that “the municipal regulation provides that there may be some exceptions to the payment of compensations”, but it is intended for cultural institutions or associations that “have no capacity or yield” to green spaces or without “financial capacity to pay it”.

“ Someone took this opportunity to extend the scope to private companies that profit millions from the apartments and that, even so, the House gives them millions of benevolence”, said the Socialist, however, considering that the authority “is not obliged to accept, just because the possibility is provided for in a regulation”.

In addition, through socialist deputy Miguel Costa Matos, a complaint was filed in European fora “because this benefit can be regarded as State aid”, calling competition into question, because one promoter “at the expense” of another.

Lusa questioned the Cascais House about exemptions from urban compensation, but has not yet been answered.