Lisbon Câmara Votes Through the 1931 Cinema Paris Demolition on Rua Domingos Sequeira — 19-Fogo Estrela Replacement Stack Lifts 5,723 m² From a 40-Year Vacant Lot

The Câmara Municipal de Lisboa (Lisbon City Council) approved the demolição (demolition) of the antigo Cinema Paris on Rua Domingos Sequeira in the União das Freguesias da Estrela at its plenary on Tuesday 17 June 2026, clearing the path for a 19-fogo residential building plus one ground-floor fração comercial (commercial unit) on a parcel that has sat devoluto (vacant) for forty-one years. The vote split along the chamber's working axis: PSD, CDS-PP and Iniciativa Liberal cast favourable ballots alongside Chega's two vereadores (council members), while PS, Livre, Bloco de Esquerda and PCP voted against. Vasco Moreira Rato, the independent vereador do Urbanismo (Planning Councillor) appointed on the PSD ticket, tabled the proposal.

The Cinema Paris opened in 1931 as one of the first dedicated picture houses in the Estrela parish and closed definitively in 1985, leaving a 952.94-square-metre lot bordering Rua Domingos Sequeira in an "advanced state of degradation" — the technical phrase the council planning service deploys to authorise demolição rather than conservação under the Plano Diretor Municipal (Municipal Master Plan). The site has cycled through several preservation-versus-redevelopment debates since the late 1990s, with the most recent licença para demolição reaching the council agenda twice before this week's binding vote.

The replacement scheme, drawn up by the project team brought in by the parcel's private owner, lays an implantation footprint of 668.92 m² over the same lot and stacks 5,723.32 m² of construction across the volume, of which 3,318.76 m² of habitable pavimento (floor area) is parcelled into the 19 fogos (dwelling units) running across the upper floors. A single fração de comércio occupies the street-level frontage, with the rest of the ground plate given to access cores, building services and a delivery vehicle bay. The licença carries no obrigação de habitação a custos controlados (controlled-cost housing obligation) — a regime the Câmara can attach to medium-sized urban operations and which the opposition vereadores criticised as a missed lever during the debate.

For the opposition bench, the absence of affordable units sits at the centre of the rejection vote. PS vereador Pedro Anastácio framed the operation as the council "abdicating from a tool" it has used in other private licences in central freguesias; the BE and Livre interventions echoed the line. The PSD/CDS-PP/IL/Chega majority responded that the parcel's narrow Estrela geometry and the private-owner profile sit outside the standard controlled-cost envelope, and that pushing the requirement would have collapsed the operation back into another open licença cycle and a likely judicial appeal under the Código do Procedimento Administrativo (Administrative Procedure Code).

The decision adds to a cluster of Estrela demolição-and-redevelopment licences the Câmara has cleared in 2026 alongside the broader run of devoluto-stock returns to the housing supply. Mayor Carlos Moedas's executive has framed those approvals as the cleanest near-term lever on the central-Lisbon supply curve, against a Banco de Portugal Boletim Económico that this month flagged demographic-versus-supply imbalances as the single largest structural input behind house-price pressure in the capital.

With the licença now firm, the demolition contractor moves to scaffolding and salvage works under the Direção Municipal de Urbanismo (Municipal Urbanism Directorate) timeline, with finished delivery of the 19 units pencilled into late-2027 or early-2028 windows depending on the foundations programme. The 1931 facade — protected by neither classificação patrimonial nor IGESPAR listing — does not carry conservation obligations into the new build.