EUKN - Portugal - National Urban Policy of Portugal

National Urban Policy of Portugal

Introduction
Most of the urban policy has taken on a sectoral approach, through specific programmes directed to providing the needed urban infrastructures, facilities and services or focusing on urban rehabilitation or renewal programmes, directed mainly to old and historical city centres.

There is a need for a strong comprehensive, coherent and integrated urban policy ensuring an overall strategy and framework for coordinated and complementary measures at the different levels, as well as for coordination with the different sectoral policies that impact the urban areas.

Urban population – 68% of the total population, concentrated mainly in 2 metropolitan areas, Lisbon and Porto, with a total of 3.822.230 inhabitants, 42 medium-sized cities with a total of 1.895.657 inhabitants, and 208 towns and small urban centres, with a total of 1.689.174 inhabitants, with the following distribution:

The urban system is characterized by asymmetry and imbalance between the metropolitan areas and their other components, with many of the medium-sized cities lacking functional specialization and with a human and economic stagnation or even decline in the small towns and urban centres.

Urban development is concentrated mainly in the metropolitan regions and in the southern coastal area, with continuing suburbanization and decay of the central areas. In the urban areas of the hinterland, small increases in population and development through suburbanization can be verified in some of the medium-sized cities and towns, while the smaller urban areas continue to lose population. At the same time, a general effort of urban rehabilitation and qualification has been directed mainly towards old and historical centres in all urban areas, in order to increase both the quality of life of their inhabitants and their attractiveness, also in economic terms.

Organisation
Portugal is a unitary State, with two autonomous regions - Madeira and Azores, which have their own politic-administrative statutes and Government. The State is subordinated to the Constitution and democratic laws. According to the Constitution, the State, the autonomous regions and the local authorities have legal competencies in what concerns spatial planning.

Different levels/different actors
At national level the Parliament is competent for defining the legal principles and policies and for approving the Spatial Planning Policy Nation Programme.
At national and regional levels, the Government, mainly through central and regional departments of the Ministry of Environment, Spatial Planning and Regional Development is competent for:
- defining territorial policies and programmes;
- preparing the Spatial Planning Policy Nation Programme;
- preparing and approving national sectoral plans (prepared for agriculture, forestry, fisheries, energy, industry, transport, water management, waste management, tourism and others), regional plans and special plans (coastal regions, lagoons, nature protected areas);
- in same cases for ratifying municipal level plans.
At local level the local authorities are competent for preparing and approving municipal and inter-municipal plans which are land use plans and also have the major legal competencies in what concerns urbanism and building permits.

Public consultation
The Constitution determines that the public must be consulted during the preparation of urban plans. Appropriate time frames are set allowing sufficient time for consultation, including the expression of opinion in order to contribute to more transparent and participated decision-making. The public includes persons, their associations, organisations or groups.

Government, regional and local authorities and the private sector are the key players in urban policy.

Current Issues
The current issues involve the imbalance of the urban system, concentration of population in the metropolitan and coastal areas with urban sprawl and loss of population in the central and historical urban areas, lack of urban quality in suburban areas, some slum areas in the metropolitan regions, together with problems of lack or uneven access to infrastructures and facilities and transport accessibility.

The most important is the need to consolidate a coherent urban policy, based on simultaneously ensuring the quality of life and functionality of the cities, their competitiveness and innovation, the rehabilitation of consolidated urban areas and the urban regeneration of problem areas, together with the need to balance the urban system as a whole, as well as all its cities, towns and other urban areas, linking the reinforcement of their innovation capacity, competitiveness and economical base with better quality of life for their inhabitants, focusing on 3 priority areas: regeneration of central areas, comprehensive and integrated interventions to qualify peripheral and suburban areas, qualification and security of public spaces, linked to a housing policy based on the promotion of access to housing, coordination of housing policies with the qualification of the urban environment and conciliation of State’s, municipalities’, private, cooperative and associative sector’s interventions.

Key Programmes
Some examples of existing programmes:

City and metropolitan qualification programmes within the framework of the 5 Regional Programmes, with funding from the ERDF and ESF in CSF III (2000-2006);
Digital City Projects – with funding from the CSF III (2000-2006), the programme supports projects that through ICT contribute to a better quality of life of urban populations and business’ competitiveness.
URBCOM – finances urban commercial projects to modernize business and services activities, the qualification of the surrounding public space and the promotion of the project, when in specific urban centres’, characterized by having high commercial density, centrality, multi-functionality and economic, social and heritage development.
POLIS (Urban qualification and urban environment enhancement programme) – Through the development of “best-examples” interventions, and based in partnerships, namely between the Government and the municipalities, the programme aims to provide a better quality of life in cities, through urban and environmental interventions, thus contributing also to improve the attractiveness and competitiveness of urban areas with an important role in structuring the national urban system. The programme is structured in 4 main strands, including different lines of intervention.
PRAUD (Urban rehabilitation programme for derelict areas) – financed by the central administration and managed by the local authorities, it has 2 strands, one directed to the support of technical teams to prepare urban rehabilitation plans and another co-financing concrete interventions contemplated by those plans.
AUGI (Conversion of illegal urban areas) – establishes an exceptional legal regime to legalize illegal urban areas, when included in areas classified as urban development areas in land-use municipal plans.
PER (Special re-housing programme) – through agreements between central Government and municipalities, it provides financial support for infrastructuring and house building to re-house families previously leaving in slums or derelict houses in social housing or housing with controlled costs; municipalities, private social institutions, housing co-operatives and private business can be beneficiaries.
Initiative for the Qualification and Urban Re-insertion of Critical Neighbourhoods – newly approved programme that aims at stimulating and testing innovative institutional, procedural and technological solutions in relation to the design, implementation and assessment of public intervention in critical urban areas, to be applied in specific neighbourhoods of Lisbon and Porto metropolitan areas.