Porto com Sentido opens a new tender for the allocation of 12 dwellings in February

A new tender will be launched in early February, within the scope of the affordable rental program "Porto com Sentido", which aims to introduce affordable housing to the traditional rental market, covering a further 12 properties ready to live.

Gradually, the objective of placing private fires at affordable prices, with municipal support, is being fulfilled. The "Porto com Sentido" program, operated by the municipal company Porto Vivo, SRU, has already carried out a first tender for tenants and is preparing a second procedure, to be carried out in February.

The first tender for the "Porto com Sentido" program to rent housing available on the market brought together a total of 49 properties. Among these, the first 7 properties for sublease were in competition - the fractions will be allocated by lot among the candidates.

The conditions are met for a new sublease tender, within the scope of this program, which will be launched in early February, relating to a set of 12 properties ready to live under the affordable lease regime.

But not only: at the same time, a new tender for landowners will also be launched in February, as well as a procedure for the signing of promissory housing lease contracts, aimed at properties located in urban rehabilitation areas.

In the new competition for owners with housing ready to live, which is under preparation, the municipality is available to lease up to 500 properties. This tender will be launched in February, respecting the new general conditions of the program, approved at the end of December 2020. The changes took into account, namely, the possibility of rent advances, which constitutes an incentive to the owner to carry out small interventions of renovation and improvement of the property, whose duration does not exceed one year.

Based on the recently approved conditions of the "Porto com Sentido" program, another tender is also being prepared for the conclusion of promissory lease contracts for properties located in urban rehabilitation areas, which will be, after the completion of the respective works rehabilitation or building, converted into definitive lease agreements. The municipality will be willing to enter into promissory lease contracts up to a limit of 200 properties.

This municipal effort is part of the fight against the failure identified in the housing market. Porto com Sentido "does not constitute - in itself - a housing policy, because this is actually much more extensive", stressed the Mayor of Porto, Rui Moreira, upon approval by the Municipal Assembly of the new general conditions of this program. "Porto com Sentido is one of several solutions. We have to mobilize all of them", corroborated the City Councilor, Pedro Baganha.

Thus, a major project is also underway in Lordelo do Ouro, where the municipality will build between 300 and 320 dwellings, most at affordable prices, in what will be an unprecedented municipal investment, the largest of which there is memory in recent decades, in a total of 44 million euros.

There is also the dimension of private investment in public land, with projects such as those planned for Monte da Bela and Monte Pedral.

Without forgetting what the municipality has been promoting at the level of the Local Housing Strategy, with pioneering programs such as "Porto Solidário", which promotes aid in the payment of rent to needy families since 2014. The continued investment in the public housing stock, comprising 13 thousand dwellings, where more than 30 thousand people reside; and partnerships with various institutions, associations and entities, which are promoting significant improvements in houses that are in an advanced state of degradation.