The Government announced today measures to simplify the construction of housing, eliminating or exempting some of the licensing processes to deal with the “slowness and complexity” of the processes.
In a joint presentation with the Secretary of State for Digitization and Administrative Modernization, Mário Campolargo, in Algés, the Minister of Housing Marina Gonçalves noted that these measures arise to respond to “six major problems”.
According to the minister, the measures are part of the Mais Habitação program and seek to respond to the necessary complexity in the licensing processes, the length of time resulting from the necessary opinions, the ambiguity of municipal regulations, obsolete procedures that are difficult for human validation, the complexity and burden resulting from legislation and the scarcity of land for housing.
In his speech, Mário Campolargo noted that there will be new cases of exemption, eliminating the building permit and the authorization for use, the latter being replaced “by a simple prior communication”.
The Secretary of State also defended that the standardization of procedures and documents required by municipalities is “truly important”.
In turn, the minister guaranteed that the procedures must always respect the dimensions of quality and sustainability.
Marina Gonçalves announced the creation of a model of tacit approval for the decisions of the municipal chambers, which guarantees the approval of requests in case the municipalities do not meet the legal deadlines.
The minister also addressed the establishment of “mandatory procedural and single-act” conferences in projects of Potential National Interest, when these involve an investment of more than 25 million euros or are financed by European funds or by the Recovery and Resilience (PRR).
Municipal regulations are also covered by the measures, with the legislator now defining “more exhaustively what the municipal regulation can provide for” and the obligations that can be asked of the entities.
On the table is also the repeal of “excessive requirements” in housing construction.
“There is a job here to revoke everything that is procedural norms that are today in a diploma that should serve only for technical norms and also to eliminate some excessive demands that were made, namely with regard to the type of kitchen or the needs or obligations of the houses shower," added the minister.
As for land, Marina Gonçalves noted that in addition to the previously announced possibility of converting land and buildings currently used for commercial and housing services, “there is also a possibility here of reclassifying, in a simpler way, from rustic land to urban land , in areas adjacent to urban land”.
Mário Campolargo also announced that an 'online' platform will be created which, "in addition to simplifying and concentrating the submission of applications in a single place", will allow citizens to consult the status of processes and deadlines and receive notifications of electronic notices or obtain certificates of exemption from urban planning procedures.
“In addition to these advances, and focusing more on the area of digitization, one of the great advances that will occur will be the use of BIM, an English acronym for Building Information Modeling, a methodology, if I may say so, of work that uses the 3D model to represent and manage information about a building or infrastructure”, which will be implemented in a phased manner, he added.
The two leaders stated that these measures arise from consultation with the entire sector, including with municipalities, designers or contractors.
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