The moratorium that restricts new local accommodation licenses to a maximum of 2.5% of houses per parish in Lisbon ends on Friday, November 7th.
Without there being plans for debate or action to prolong it, these projects can grow exponentially: in São Domingos de Benfica, Alvalade, Beato or Areeiro they can reach 20%.
Mariana Mortágua highlighted that this could lead to an explosion of the AL, which will then “have the license”, irreversibly.
During the campaign, Alexandra Leitão, with PS, Livre, PAN and Bloco, but also the CDU, warned of the need to contain AL to avoid an increase in real estate speculation, even suggesting limit zones and the conversion of some of these for housing uses.
Mortágua accuses Carlos Moedas of “lying”, advertising in a campaign his intention to control local accommodation. The public consultation ended in April, but the document was not taken to the Chamber until the last days in office. The blockers understand that Moedas could have prevented the end of the moratorium with the approval of the regulation that “was already ready in the CML” and claim that he “purposely postponed the vote to be able to open the doors to new licenses”. Moedas also never scheduled the opposition’s proposal to extend the moratorium until the new regulation comes into force at the Chamber meetings.
The moratorium was in force in the last years of his mandate, given that Carlos Moedas’ Executive had seven councilors, as many as the PS, which, in certain cases, led to the PCP and the Bloco de Esquerda, in opposition, being able to condition the policies of the Social Democrats.
It is recalled that the Constitutional Court, at the beginning of 2025, rejected the proposal for a local referendum on local accommodation in Lisbon for “failing to verify the legality” of the popular initiative due to the lack of “effective control of the signatures” required in this context. The realization had been decided by the Lisbon Municipal Assembly.