Mayor plans to prevent the opening of new local tourist accommodation in Lisbon
For the Mayor of Lisbon, it is necessary to "recover properties used as local tourist accommodation for the housing market."
Fernando Medina, Mayor of Lisbon, who is running for re-election in the local elections on September 26, wants to “make it impossible” to open new local tourist accommodation “all over Lisbon”. The measure will be included in the socialist electoral programme, he revealed in an interview with Diário de Notícias and TSF.
“My intention is, if I win the elections, to propose to the municipality the application of this principle of the impossibility of opening too many local accommodation units in the city of Lisbon,” says Medina. “I believe that this measure is necessary, now that the levels of demand are lower, so that everyone has a very clear scenario we will no longer allow this shift from residential properties to local tourist accommodation,” he says. On the opposite side, Medina considers it is essential to “recover properties allocated for local accommodation for the housing market”, without “touching the licenses attributed.”
Convinced that local accommodation “has gone too far in the city of Lisbon”, Medina highlights that the change in the sector’s legislation should give “more power to municipalities to regulate” and will be “important to control the tourism sector.”
