Government announces its “More Housing”: there will be no “control of rent increases”, “coercive leasing” replaced by “layers of pressure”, “private and cooperatives” called to build

Minister of Housing advanced even more measures during the CNN Portugal Summit. Miguel Pinto Luz says he doesn’t want to “tear up” with all the policies of the previous Government”: “We’re going to improve.” And he warns that it’s work for more than “one legislature.” The plan will be known “in the coming weeks”

Miguel Pinto Luz, Minister of Infrastructure and Housing, wants “consensus” and guarantees that he will not “tear up” with all the measures adopted by the Government of António Costa. Luís Montenegro’s Executive had already decided to revoke the measures of the More Housing package.

“What we will do is improve what is necessary and maintain what is to be maintained. We won’t tear it up.” During this Thursday’s CNN Portugal Summit, which takes place within the scope of the SIL (Lisbon Real Estate Show), Miguel Pinto Luz also highlighted that one of the topics in which he will make a difference is “putting the PRR to work”, as announced in a intervention in the “coercive lease” decreed by the previous Government.

European funds are, according to the minister, the Government’s “priority”. “If we don’t meet the targets, we will lose the money”, he says, stating that this involves moving forward with the “more than 50 thousand IHRU homes that are yet to be evaluated”.

The PRR is also the only way to “act on both sides” – supply and demand. “On the demand side, we will impact fiscal policy. But if on the supply side there are no homes for young people, nothing will be done. We need to act on both sides and be able to achieve results with the PRR.”

As for the “coercive repentance” of vacant houses, the minister admits to “tearing up” and convincing the owners of vacant buildings to release them through the “fiscal route”. “We don’t believe in the incentive model. You have to create pressure layer by layer,” he explains.

Miguel Pinto Luz also promised that “there will be no control over the increase in rents”. As for Local Accommodation (AL), the minister wants to “reverse” the measures of the previous Executive, in an area that has suffered from prohibitions on new registrations. “What is different cannot be treated equally. The 40% of AL in the Algarve is not the same as in Lisbon”, he highlights, stating that the solution involves an approach that takes local authorities into account.

“Without looking at each other as enemies”

The minister recognizes the “absolutely glaring issue” that housing is in the current context. For Pinto Luz, there is one solution: “We need to rehabilitate and build more”. “We are building very little compared to 20 years ago”, he observes, placing housing for the middle class and young people as a “priority”. And this can only be changed by acting on “four axes”: encouraging “own public construction”; resort to local authorities “as a way to collect assets”; “use private ones”; use “cooperatives”.

Pinto Luz also admits “changing spatial planning” as a way of alleviating the housing crisis. “There are many owners of the territory. When the mayors realize this and open the box they realize that there is a multiplicity and this brings a lot of bureaucracy”, he says.

To resolve all the sector’s problems, the minister says that it is something that “cannot be resolved in one legislature” and that is why he wants “consensus”. “The State is incapable of promoting it alone. “There are no miracle solutions and only by sitting at the table without looking at each other as enemies will we achieve this”, he warns, seeking to create dialogues with actors in the sector, such as tenants and owners.

The minister also promised that “in the coming weeks” the Government will present “its More Housing package”, also welcoming the joining of Infrastructure and Housing in the same portfolio. “For the first time, the company that manages State assets will have shared guardianship and that means a lot. This government is willing to have a vision of how to have the State’s assets at the service of citizens. It’s a paradigm shift,” he says.