Lisbon City Hall Moves to Auction 10 Long-Forgotten Sites for €59 Million

Lisbon's city government is moving to put 10 municipal properties up for sale, seeking to raise a total base price of €59.2 million to help fund an ambitious investment programme running through 2030. The proposal was set to go before the Câmara Municipal de Lisboa (Lisbon City Council) at a private executive meeting on Wednesday, where its approval is all but guaranteed.

The properties are spread across seven of the capital's parishes — Beato, Penha de França, Marvila, Lumiar, Belém, Campolide and São Vicente — and share a common history: most have sat unused for decades, with no municipal project attached to them. In the council's own words, they are "unnecessary for the installation or functioning of municipal services" and not earmarked for housing or any approved sectoral programme, which is what makes them eligible for disposal.

The mechanism is a hasta pública (public auction), the open-bidding process the state and municipalities use to sell property transparently to the highest offer. Lisbon's approach mirrors a broader push by public bodies to monetise dormant real estate: earlier this year the central government raised more than €20 million from its own first auction of state buildings, most of it from just two properties in the capital, and it has flagged plans to sell several more emblematic sites before the end of 2026.

Getting the sale over the line is not entirely straightforward, however. The council led by Mayor Carlos Moedas — a coalition of the PSD (Social Democrats), CDS-PP (Christian Democrats) and IL (Liberal Initiative) — holds an absolute majority within the executive, so the proposal itself will pass comfortably. But eight of the 10 properties are valued above €920,000, and disposing of assets over that threshold also requires the assent of the Assembleia Municipal de Lisboa (AML, Lisbon Municipal Assembly), where Moedas's coalition does not command a majority.

That sets up a political test. The opposition benches in the assembly — spanning the Socialists, the Left Bloc and other parties — will have a say over whether the bulk of the portfolio can actually be sold, and disposals of prime municipal land in a city gripped by a housing crisis are rarely waved through without debate. Critics of past sales have argued that scarce public land should be used for affordable housing or amenities rather than sold to raise cash, a line of attack the mayor's team can expect to hear again.

For residents, the underlying issue is what a fast-growing, space-constrained Lisbon should do with the pockets of land it already owns. Selling long-idle sites can unlock revenue for schools, transport and public spaces, and can bring derelict plots back into use. But once sold, municipal land is gone for good, and the buyers will ultimately decide what rises on it, subject to planning rules.

If the proposal clears both the executive and, where required, the municipal assembly, the properties would head to auction later in the year. The €59.2 million figure is only a floor; competitive bidding could push the final total higher. Either way, the sale would mark one of the larger disposals of city-owned property in recent memory — and a concrete example of how Lisbon intends to pay for its plans for the rest of the decade.