Lisbon Plans Around 90 Homes for Posted Nurses, Teachers and Police in the Former Council of Ministers Building
The city expects to take a surface right over the old government headquarters from the state property company Estamo and spend more than 20 million euros converting it, mostly into one-bedroom flats. No date yet.
Lisbon City Council expects to take over the former headquarters of the Presidency of the Council of Ministers and turn it into about 90 homes for health workers, police officers and teachers posted to the capital from elsewhere. The plan was set out on Tuesday at a meeting of the Assembleia Municipal de Lisboa by the council's vice-president, Gonçalo Reis (PSD), who put the cost at more than 20 million euros.
"We are drawing up a protocol with Estamo," he said, referring to the state company that manages public property. "There is a commitment between the government and the Câmara Municipal de Lisboa. The council receives the surface right, will make a significant investment, which we estimate at more than 20 million euros, and will convert that building into staff housing."
One-bedroom flats for staff posted to the city
The PSD and CDS-PP government had already announced that it would hand the building, which the council places in Campo de Ourique, to the city. The council would not own it outright. It would hold a direito de superfície, a surface right: the right to build on and use the property for a period while the land stays in public hands.
Reis said the homes, mostly T1 one-bedroom flats, would be "casas de função", accommodation tied to the job, for professionals in security, health and education who are posted away from home and need somewhere to live "on affordable terms" in order to do their work. The question came from the CDS-PP municipal deputy Carlos Ardisson.
What the council has not given is a date. The housing councillor, Vasco Moreira Rato, said the timetable depends on the formal transfer of the surface right, which has not yet taken place.
Also on the agenda
The same session produced several other commitments from the city's executive. Diogo Moura (CDS-PP), the councillor for the economy, responded to the PSD deputy Sofia Vala Rocha, who had described some souvenir shops as fronts for human trafficking, by saying that such "façade shops should become closed shops". He said the municipal police had tripled the number of reports issued against commercial premises in the last two years, that nine different bodies have a hand in the area, and that he has asked the government to let the council define a containment zone in which it controls what is opened under the "licenciamento zero" regime, the fast-track system that lets many shops open on a simple notification.
On civil protection, councillor Rodrigo Mello Gonçalves (IL) said the municipal emergency plan is being revised to include flood and tsunami warning systems, with completion expected at the end of 2027 or early 2028. The city's early flood-warning network, launched in 2023, now has 20 sensors, double the previous number, which send alerts to the civil protection centre so that police can close roads and firefighters can pump water away.
Asked by the Bloco de Esquerda about free public transport, as introduced in Porto and Cascais, Reis said Lisbon offers free travel to young and older residents but does not intend to go further, because a fully free model would drain the municipal transport companies and reduce their capacity to invest.
