Council candidates in Madeira’s largest municipality, Funchal, have various ideas on how to tackle the housing crisis, but almost all of them agree on one thing: AL (short-term holiday rentals) should be suspended in residential buildings (apartment blocks).
Fourteen candidates took part in a debate broadcast last night on RTP/Madeira, having the opportunity to float possible measures which may also find traction on mainland territory.
The PSD/CDS-PP coalition candidate, Jorge Carvalho, defended the revision of the Municipal Master Plan (PDM) so that families who have the capacity to build, or expand their homes, can do so in areas where the PDM currently does not allow it. (This is an idea that would find enormous support among families who own land, for example, on which their children could live, close to the main house but which is currently not deemed ‘urban’.)
Regarding AL particularly, Carvalho was all for it if it involves “real estate recovery,” but believes “everything in collective housing should be reviewed and should not occupy those spaces.”
Rui Caetano, for the PS party, agreed with the PSD candidate; JPP’s candidate Fátima Aveiro advocated limiting AL “in areas where there is overload, but not everywhere” as “tourism is important”.
CHEGA’s candidate, Luís Filipe Santos, stressed Funchal must “immediately create regulations” for AL, while PAN’s candidate Mónica Freitas called for all AL to be immediately “placed on the rental market”.
There were a couple of aspirant council leaders (for IL and PTP) who felt AL was being ‘demonised’, or used as a scapegoat for the region’s housing problems, but the consensus saw AL as having been allowed to run out of control, and in so running, adding to Funchal’s housing issues – and most appeared to be all for the PDM being rewritten to accommodate needs thrown up by the crisis.
Source material: LUSA
