House of Matosinhos also waiting for IHRU response over 204 houses

ANDm two letters to which Lusa had access today, sent to the IHRU, the mayor of Matosinhos, Luísa Salgueiro (PS), in May already realized that the process for the design of 204 for accessible lease “started in 2022” and involved the granting of portions of the municipality.

In missiva, Luísa Salgueiro asked the IHRU to inform, “as soon as possible”, if this Institute had intended to “progress immediately with the implementation of the said undertaking”, considering that in May it had not yet been defined “the conditions for the granting of the land in question, as well as the time lapse already elapsed without concrete results”.

“ In the absence of such confirmation, or if there are no conditions for its execution in a useful time, you will see the municipality of Matosinhos need to promote, by the appropriate means, the rapid feasibility of the housing project in question ", can be read in the letter addressed to the president of IHRU, Benjamin Costa Pereira.

Already on September 29, the call for a response was reinforced, stressing Luisa Salgueiro who cared for the municipality “knowing the current position of the IHRU in this process, namely if the intention to move forward, with immediate character, for the realization of the project is maintained”.

“This response is particularly important in order for the municipality to be able to define the subsequent steps in relation to the land concerned”, and it is reiterated that “if conditions are not met for the implementation of the project in good time, its viability will have to be considered” by the municipality.

Atelier Carvalho Araújo, who won in 2023 the contest for the design of 204 houses in Picoutos, has no contract, work, or responses from the Government and the IHRU, reported to Lusa on Tuesday.

“ Almost three years later, there is no contract, there is no work, there is no calendar and there is not a single official explanation ", said the architecture workshop, based in Braga, in a statement sent to Lusa, demanding to IHRU and the Ministry of Infrastructure and Housing that explain publicly where the 204 houses are at controlled costs of the Park of Picoutos, in Matosinhos, in the district of Porto.

For the Picoutos Park it is planned to build 1,000 public and private houses, 204 of which already filed with the IHRU for affordable income.

The Authority recalled that the IHRU launched the contest for the design of houses in March 2023 and set June as the deadline for the submission of tenders and in December a project of the workshop was chosen, with the IHRU estimated the construction at EUR 25.6 million and the total investment at EUR 35,2 million with funding from the PRR.

Atelier Carvalho Araújo explained that, among the various competitions in which he could have participated, he chose this for the size, social relevance of the project, proximity to the territory where he works and conditions of the contract announced by IHRU, with a fee of EUR 1.31 million.

To respond to the contest, the studio involved an extended multidisciplinary team, with a large number of its architects, to which engineers, landscape architects and consultants from various specialties, were added, he pointed out.

“ Since the result was communicated, the workshop sought the IHRU through all possible channels, from email, telephone and personal contact with the president of the institute, and the answer was always the same, that is, none ", stressed.

According to the studio, Picoutos is only “one of the faces of a larger problem”, because IHRU has launched 26 design contests since January 2020, a total of 2.816 housing and more than 514 million planned investment, and only three works are under way in Almada, in Setúbal district.