The intervention for the rehabilitation of 276 buildings and 17 hectares in the riverside area and the old center of the city of Portimão could amount to 24,8 million euros, of which 16,4 million refer to interventions in the built heritage and 8,4 million to the space. public. Funding will be provided by the owners of the buildings, through partnerships between public and private entities and through funding funds such as the European JESSICA programme.
The numbers are just an estimate, based on recoveries of similar areas in other cities, taking into account the number of buildings to be intervened, but they are already helping Portimonsians have a sense of how much it will cost to make this area of the city competitive again.
And the curiosity to know the proposals of the Master Plan for the Urban Regeneration of the Old City Center and the Strategic Plans for Urban Rehabilitation was such that the people from Portimão filled the large auditorium of the Municipal Theater of Portimão (Tempo), this Monday, in a clarification session that took place within the scope of the European Heritage Days.
The presentation of the various plans for the city was not very enlightening, nor did it even respond to the immense curiosity of the more than three hundred people who filled the Tempo room completely. Many, frustrated at not noticing the (weak) explanations of the architects responsible for the projects, ended up leaving the auditorium.
Even so, those who went to the Theater were at least aware that, according to Carlos Lobo, former Secretary of State for Fiscal Affairs, the global recovery plan will be a “one-generation project, which will take between 10 and 15 years to be realized. », being considered «the most ambitious in the country».
Therefore, there will be a long way to go, which includes the revision of the Municipal Master Plan (still ongoing), the creation of a logic of public infrastructure to support real estate, an equitable redistribution of land gains and charges arising from public action , the implementation of a municipal development and financing strategy.
The certainty is that the greatest effort will be made by private individuals, owners of heritage in these areas, as explained by Carlos Lobo, it is necessary for them to rehabilitate their buildings, following the assumption that «if everyone does, everyone will benefit from the appreciation of that area. zone".
Thus, the proposed rehabilitation presented refers to three levels of funding. The first is supported by the property owners, who will have to requalify their assets, as they will be the main beneficiaries of all the intervention.
However, the entities “have to create mechanisms so that this rehabilitation is as less onerous as possible, either through protocols with banks, the creation of a contractors' pool or a favorable regime of fees and incentives”, warns Carlos Lobo. It should, however, be taken into account that, in the city center, the majority of elderly people live with low pensions and have a low economic capacity to arrange their homes.
The second source of financing will be the partnership between private and public, where the objective is to attract investors. That area of Portimão is now degraded, suffering from security and drug problems, but if there is certainty that it will be an area to be rehabilitated, it will be possible to attract investment, as it will become more attractive. Carlos Lobo exemplified with the case of Lisbon, where there is a growth in tourist accommodation in the old town.
The third financing proposal is the public action, through funds, "of attracting public support", he said. One of the ideas that the municipality has already put into practice was the application to the JESSICA initiative, promoted by the European Investment Bank and the European Commission.
This program aims to support Member States in the use of financial engineering mechanisms for the application of structural funds destined "to finance urban regeneration investments", within the framework of the cohesion policy, said the former secretary of state.
The traditional form of support for isolated projects, through non-repayable contributions, is replaced by the mobilization of community structural funds from the perspective of reimbursable financing and within the scope of new financial engineering mechanisms: the Urban Development Funds (UDF).
Through the recovery of invested structural funds (reimbursable financing) it is possible to ensure financing instruments for urban development that do not run out during the period of validity of the current QREN 2007 – 2013. It is for this reason that Carlos Lobo believes that it is «necessary to channel public funds , which from 2013 onwards will be more and will focus on cities and their development as centers of development». To encourage the private sector to fix the buildings, however, public entities need to simplify the process at a bureaucratic level.
In turn, the intention is that «the urban expansion areas, which until now have benefited from the historic center, will now contribute. It does not imply the creation of more taxes, but that the amount raised with the fees starts to be used to improve the public infrastructure of the city's historic center», added the expert.
The unfreezing of rents, the formation and information of the real estate market (knowing the value of the offer and the value of the transaction), the elimination of bureaucratic barriers, the creation of a land exchange (land) and the promotion of social housing in the center are other of the solutions presented on Monday.
As the intervention area is very wide, with 17 hectares and 276 buildings, and includes the private and public space, the proposal is that the plan proceeds in four phases, in a systematic operation, revealed the architect Catarina Antunes, of the team that prepared the proposal. The first phase will be along the riverside of Portimão.
Thus, from October to March 2012, technicians will carry out a door-to-door survey of the 276 buildings and their state of conservation (indoor and outdoor), as well as the identification of planned interventions. The next steps are the elaboration of a calendar of rehabilitation actions, the presentation of options, a framework of support and incentives, the definition of an execution deadline, priorities, a management model, the creation of a program of public investment and a financing program.
It will still have to be decided whether the municipal company Portimão Urbis, which has the legal powers in terms of urban rehabilitation, will manage and supervise the execution of the plans.
The mayor of Portimão Manuel da Luz also revealed that this set of proposals has not yet been discussed in the meetings of the Chamber and of the Municipal Assembly, with "other sessions for further reflection being open". As it is still an open phase, the mayor also provided the email addresses where the population can send contributions, ideas and suggestions: geral@cm-portimão.pt e [email protected].
In fact, the issue that the session at Tempo was intended to present proposals, which will now be subject to discussion and acceptance of contributions, was repeated several times, both by Manuel da Luz and by the interveners.
At the end of the presentation, which lasted for two hours, and with the Theater's large auditorium reduced to a few dozen people, there was still time for some of the attendees to ask questions.
The first was precisely the difficulty in understanding the proposals (poorly) explained by their authors in the session and the need for the Portimão Chamber to now make the plans and images shown in the session available to anyone who wants to consult them.
For Manuel da Luz, the moment of crisis is an opportunity to «start preparing for the future in an area that everyone says is degraded and that does not help to promote an image of the municipality, which wants to be competitive». The objective of this Master Plan will be to facilitate access to the commercial area and give residents a better quality of life. The discussion follows in a moment...
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