Cascais municipality has taken out a €30 million loan to stymie property speculation on 32-plots close to ‘millionaire paradise’ Quinta da Marinha.
Correio da Manhã reports today that the council ‘exercised its right of preference in the acquisition of these plots when the owner was hoping to sell them to two companies linked to Venezuelan citizens.”
The ‘Venezuelan link’ is not actually the point: the point is that had the deal gone through, the council believes that 434.6 sq m of land comprising the 32 plots would have led to (habitual) property speculation in a highly-prized area, which the council considers ‘strategic’.
The council’s plan, says CM, is to create “a large urban park, with a significant residential component – some of which would be destined to accessible rentals”.
Not every councillor/ political group is ‘all for’ the decision – stressing the council hasn’t come up with a concrete proposal of how it means to use the land. But this is a rare occasion where a municipality has ‘stepped in’ and claimed ‘rights to first refusal’ on a large parcel of land which otherwise would indeed have joined the ‘luxury segment’ of this exceptionally up-market location for real estate.
According to CM, the 32-plots had come to be owned by the Lusomundo investment fund which ‘did not want to give Cascais the right of acquisition’. The municipality thus had to put in a court injunction – and as a result the two companies (linked to Venezuelan citizens) pulled out.
In the past, the land had been considered as the location for the Aga Khan foundation (which eventually chose an historic palace in Lisbon) and other “megalomaniac real estate projects”, adds the paper.
Now it is just a question of waiting to see when development on this new municipal megaplan actually begins.
Source: Correio da Manhã
