Aveiro Councillors Back a Master Plan Change to Let Homes Rise Higher After Gaining 7,700 Residents in Four Years

Aveiro wants to build upwards. At its public meeting on Friday 6 November, held at the Centro Social de Requeixo, the Câmara Municipal de Aveiro (Aveiro City Council) unanimously approved the start of the first alteration to its Plano Diretor Municipal (PDM, the municipal master plan that sets what can be built where), with the stated aim of allowing more construction in height to answer the shortage of homes, according to Lusa as reported by Notícias ao Minuto and Observador.

The council's own agenda for meeting n.º 23 lists three parts to the item: terms of reference, the opening of a participation period, and a decision that the change does not need a strategic environmental assessment. The plan being changed is the revised PDM published in 2019.

What the council wants to change

The mayor, Luís Souto Miranda (PSD/CDS-PP/PPM), said the aim is to "create the conditions for housing growth", which the current plan limits, and that Aveiro must end what he called the dogma that the city could not grow in height. "If urban land is limited, leaving aside historic sites and certain landscape features, Aveiro has to start thinking that it must grow in height," he said, calling his approach, "with tents or without tents", the one that would actually bring more homes. He also wants new centres of activity in the outlying parishes, so that people do not all crowd into the same areas.

The councillor for private building works, Ana Cláudia Oliveira, said planning had to catch up with how Aveiro had changed since 2019. The municipality had 91,397 residents at the end of 2025, she said, 9.2 percent more than in 2021 and above the national average. "That is about 7,700 new residents in just four years," she said, adding that the growth puts new demands on housing, infrastructure, public facilities and transport.

Supply is the pressure point nationally too: Portugal has finished only about two in three of the homes it licensed in seven years.

What is not known yet

Neither the agenda nor the reports so far say which zones would be opened to taller buildings or how many storeys would be allowed. Those details belong in the terms of reference, which had not been published on the council's website by Friday evening. The same agenda also carried the start of an alteration to the Regulamento Urbanístico do Município de Aveiro (the council's building regulation); its content has not been published either.

How residents can have a say

Under Decreto-Lei n.º 80/2015 (the legal regime for territorial management instruments), a plan alteration follows the same steps as drawing up a plan. The council's decision is published in the Diário da República and on its website, and opens a period in which anyone may send suggestions and information. A formal public discussion of the finished proposal comes later, announced by another notice, before the Assembleia Municipal (municipal assembly) votes. The council must reply in writing, with reasons, to objections that raise a breach of the law or of someone's rights, and every council and assembly meeting on the plan must be public.

For buyers and owners, nothing changes yet: the current PDM stays in force until an alteration is approved and published. If you own land or live near a likely growth area, watch the council's notices and the Diário da República for the participation notice, and send your comments in writing while the window is open.