Four state-owned properties, valued at around €17.6 million, will be going under the hammer tomorrow at auction – the idea being that proceeds will be ploughed into ‘public housing policies’.
Tabloid Correio da Manhã brings this story, referring to the Council of Ministers in September last year, where the decision was made to sell off empty state-owned buildings to help provide much-needed accessible housing on the rental market..
Of the properties going under the hammer at Belém Cultural Centre tomorrow (10am), the most expensive is the old ‘General Directorate of Economic Activities’ building in Avenida Visconde de Valmour: standing at 10-storeys, with two basements (one for parking), it has the ground floor available for ‘commerce’ and the rest for office space. The base price is €13 million.
Then there is the six-storey building used by the former General Inspectorate of Territorial Administration, in Rua Filipe Folque (also in Lisbon), also with underground parking – and finally, two plots of land: one in Póvoa de Varzim, and available for construction (base price €337,000) and one in Marco de Canaveses (rustic land, base price €159,000).
These are just the tip of a veritable iceberg of state-owned properties that critics will probably say are taking far too long to ‘release’.
The auction tomorrow is ‘for those present only’: no postal bids, or electronic bids accepted. Highest bidders will be expected to pay 15% on adjudication, and to explain there and then what they will be using the property for, says CM – adding that there will be at least two more similar auctions later on in the year.
