Digitization shortens Porto's licensing deadlines

Porto City Council is now proceeding with licensing processes at the fastest pace in the last 6 years, guarantees City Councillor Pedro Baganha.

After a digitization process implemented in all municipal services, namely in urban planning, the dematerialization of the municipal processes today is complete. This change generated "some natural constraints, and that period of adjustment existed, but now we can assume that it was an outdated constraint”. 

Pedro Baganha spoke as a guest of the most recent webinar of the cycle "The Roadmap to Recovery”, organized by APPII, VI and Ci. "Today there is no paper processing” in the municipality, "since the beginning of this year we have stopped allowing the submission of physical processes, either through the citizen's office or at our virtual service desk”.

The only exception remains the workbook, which the City Councillor believes will be digital until the end of August.

Soon, Porto City Council should launch a new geographic portal, "dedicated exclusively to urban planning processes in progress", where the status of the processes can be checked. Because "an informed, transparent and scrutinized market is a healthy market”.

Pedro Baganha recalls that, with the beginning of the confinement, "most of the non-essential services of the municipality were placed at home in 48 hours, it was a Herculean task and a radical change in work habits. Porto City Council has advanced years, and the digitization that started last year contributed a lot to this”. Therefore, he considers that the municipality entered the pandemic "with the homework done, in terms of accounts and the organization of the services".