Housing? “Portugal did not wait for Europe. He did his homework”

Sthe Minister for Housing and Infrastructure, Miguel Pinto Luz, Portugal, anticipated the European guidelines and followed a strategy that the European Commission has now recommended.

“Portugal did not wait for Europe. He did his homework and today sees his strategy confirmed”, says Miguel Pinto Luz, quoted in a statement released today.

The European initiative, called the Affordable Housing Act, aims to support EU Member States and cities in increasing affordable housing provision, especially in areas under greater housing pressure.

According to the Portuguese Government, the framework now presented by Brussels “it follows several of the guidelines that have already been implemented in Portugal, namely the strengthening of housing supply, the availability of more soil for construction, the support to lease, the simplification of licensing processes and the increase of public investment in the sector“.

“ Two years after Constructing Portugal, Europe also puts the offer, not just regulatory measures, at the heart of responding to the housing challenge”, says Pinto Luz.

Among the measures highlighted by the government is the investment of around EUR 10 billion in public housing, which is the largest ever in the country, financed through European funds and the State Budget.

“In Lodging, Portugal anticipated in two years the European principles applicable to the sector, by strengthening the regulatory power of the municipalities, reformulating the containment areas and consecrating the areas of sustainable growth, allowing to reconcile the right to housing with tourism activity and private property”, reads in the note.

On Wednesday, the European Commission proposed the new Accessible Housing Act, focusing on the regulation of local housing to relieve housing pressure, and the European Housing Commissioner considered that local housing “is part of the problem” of the European Union’s housing crisis (EU), highlighting the “very worrying” situation of cities such as Lisbon, where rents increased by 103% in 10 years.

Dan Jørgensen indicated that in many cities and areas in the EU “the increase in housing for short-term rental has led to ordinary people being excluded from their own homes and this has led to an increase in prices that is totally unacceptable.

The new Accessible Housing Act, which has been awaited for months and is part of the European Accessible Housing Plan, establishes a common framework for identifying areas under housing pressure and defining the conditions that must be met before the adoption of restrictions on local housing or other uses of buildings that do not correspond to the main residence.

In particular, an area could only be considered “under housing pressure” if the ratio between housing prices and household incomes was equal to or greater than eight and increased in the last 10 years, according to the proposal.

The Association of Local Accommodation in Portugal (ALEP) considered the European Commission’s objective of wanting to clarify the rules for regulating local accommodation (AL) ambitious, but states that the proposal presented today “is not very clarifying”.

The President of the European Council, António Costa, welcomed the new Accessible Housing Act, considering the availability of affordable homes as “one of the most urgent problems”, affecting millions of Europeans.

“ I welcome the publication today by the European Commission of the Accessible Housing Act. The availability of affordable housing is one of the most pressing and concrete issues for millions of Europeans across our continent,” said António Costa, in a publication on social networks.

The European Commission's proposal will now proceed for negotiation in the European Parliament and in the Council of the European Union before its possible approval and application by the Member States.