Porto promotes a strategy to attract private investors for housing response

While attending the MIPIM, in Cannes, the Mayor of Porto was one of the guests in an episode of the podcast "The Urbanist", from Monocle Radio 24, where he spoke about the strategy of attracting private investors to meet the housing needs, but also about the importance of the future high-speed railway line for the northern region of Portugal and Galicia.

In an interview with journalist Andrew Tuck, who questioned the balance needed to respond in terms of housing to the growing number of new residents and to those who, being citizens of Porto, seek affordable rents, Rui Moreira said he believed that the city has two options: "either we kill demand or we increase supply".

Assuming that the municipality's policy is the second option, the mayor said he was at MIPIM, the world's largest event dedicated to the real estate market, to "find investors who want to build affordable housing".

"What we are offering is the "build to rent" modality, a system that the British know very well, of long-term leases, in empty areas of the city of which we can spend", explained Rui Moreira, adding that, as a counterpart, investors will have to consider a part of the housing for affordable rent.

In a logic of "giving back to the citizens the income we have with taxes on housing", the Mayor revealed that, during MIPIM, "some investors have already told us that they want to join us", building housing and putting it on the market, with the City Hall paying a part of the rent for a five-year period, helping the fixation of young population.

Rui Moreira has no doubt that "we have to attract private investors to help us solve the problem of high housing costs" by lowering their levels of distrust. "Porto has 13% municipal housing, we have done our job, but we still need more housing," he reinforces, recalling how the city maintains the trend of attracting people to the technology companies that have been settling in Porto.

On Monocle Radio 24, the Mayor also spoke about the impact that the Government's "ambitious plan" to bring high speed rail services to the country will have on the region's dynamics, not only in Porto, but also in the North of Portugal and Galicia.

For Rui Moreira, having Porto's airport 35 minutes away from Vigo and 1h15 from Lisbon, and with a connection to Braga by train, "may change the reality of the city's economy and prepare it to be one of the biggest hubs in the North of the Iberian Peninsula". In addition to the "important impact on the environment", the high-speed rail link will be reflected in travel costs, the Mayor of Porto believes.

This year, the municipality of Porto participated in MIPIM in a joint strategy with Vila Nova de Gaia and Matosinhos. In Cannes, the Atlantic Front presented Greater Porto, which, since its creation, has already been able to attract over 100 million euros of investment in projects for the region.