Residents do not want social housing in a housing area in Quinta da Coutada | housing and urbanism

The Vila Franca de Xira City Council intends to promote a change to the Quinta da Coutada Subdivision with the aim of using extensive municipal land there to build social housing units, within the scope of Program 1. Right. The municipality maintains that these will be buildings intended mainly for young couples on an affordable rental basis. But residents and owners of Quinta da Coutada, an extensive urbanization located about two kilometers from the county seat, are against it and have already expressed their opposition in various ways.

Around 300 inhabitants submitted presentations against the change proposed by the city council in the public consultation held at the end of December. And since then, they have gathered 482 signatures in a petition and even formed an association, which intends to raise these and other concerns with local authorities. Residents understand that the city council’s project would completely “decharacterize” Quinta da Coutada, where single-family homes predominate, and even state that it will be the city council’s intention to build buildings there, including some townhouse buildings.

The Vila Franca de Xira City Council, in response to PÚBLICO, maintains that a meeting has been scheduled with the new residents’ association of Quinta da Coutada and that “municipal services are analyzing the reports received as part of the public inquiry to change the license subdivision”. The city council of Vila-Franquense also emphasizes that the submission of the proposal relating to the sixth alteration of the Quinta da Coutada subdivision for public consultation was approved “unanimously” at a chamber meeting, “to prepare the respective evaluation report”, based on in which there will be a final vote in the municipal bodies.

Municipal land 15 years ago

With the aim of giving destination to a set of 21 plots of land in Quinta da Coutada that came into the possession of the council as part of the negotiation (exchange) that led, 15 years ago, to the release of the space where the new Vila hospital was built Franca, the local city council now intends to build municipal housing buildings on these plots. The project should be financed by the PRR (Recovery and Resilience Plan) within the scope of the Municipal Housing Strategy and, following proposals presented by social-democratic councilors, the mayor, Fernando Paulo Ferreira, has said that the intention is to build there are homes for young couples on an affordable income basis. Access conditions must be defined by specific regulations and the houses allocated by competition.

However, to move forward with the project, it is necessary to change the Quinta da Coutada subdivision. In this sense, in December, a public consultation process took place in which residents and owners had the right to comment on this sixth change proposed by the council. Essentially, the municipality intends to build two- and three-storey buildings on the 21 lots where the old subdivision provides for 21 houses. In total, the council’s project aims to build 105 social housing units in Quinta da Coutada.

But PÚBLICO knows that there were around 300 statements presented against the changes recommended by the municipality. Residents say that the buildings proposed there would completely distort an urbanization currently made up essentially of housing and that the density and volume of the buildings suggested will not be acceptable. The process led, more recently, to the creation of an association of residents and owners of Quinta da Coutada, which intends to defend this position before the chamber. And also demand greater attention from local authorities for the urbanization of Quinta da Coutada, who understand that it has been consigned to “forgetfulness”, because there are no public facilities, such as a children’s playground, the containers and garbage collection are too “ deficit” and streets and sidewalks are in many cases degraded. The bush is also an image of many plots of Quinta da Coutada, starting at the main entrance to the urbanization.

Quinta da Coutada was an AUGI (Urban Area of ​​Illegal Genesis) that advanced to a regularization/reconversion process, which culminated in the issuance of the respective subdivision permit in 2011. It has more than 300 lots and, with the completion of the development process, legalization, public spaces in urbanization became the responsibility of local authorities.