Porto. City Council plans to renovate buildings near the Luís I Bridge

Porto City Council unanimously approved this Monday the delimitation of the “Santa Clara Intervention Unit”, which will allow for the rehabilitation of buildings near the Luis I Bridge, the creation of a garden and an “elevator” connecting the Ribeira Tunnel to this area of the Historic Center.

The Santa Clara Intervention Unit, with 1.3 hectares of land between Avenida Vimara Peres and Rua da Ribeira Negra, corresponds to one of the ten sub-operations that make up the Historic Center Urban Rehabilitation Area, whose delimitation was approved in 2012.

On the sidelines of Monday's executive meeting, which took place behind closed doors, the councilor responsible for Urban Planning and Public Space, Pedro Baganha, explained that it is something similar to a "detailed plan" and that some of the main axes of this unit are "the rehabilitation of the building with the predominance of housing, the maintenance of the population that resides there in its place of origin and the rehabilitation of public space".

"I should also mention that there is an opportunity here that Porto City Council wants to take advantage of, which is the existence of some public land — municipal and state —, to build a neighborhood garden, right there next to the Luís I Bridge, which seems to me to be an opportunity that the city cannot miss, to improve the public space in this territory," he said, highlighting the "urgency" of rehabilitating this area, characterized by many abandoned buildings.

For the PS, Rosário Gamboa said that this is an “extremely important” rehabilitation and that the future existence of a garden and an elevator will enhance “the visibility of the dignity of the Historic Center”.

Councillor Joana Rodrigues, from the CDU, justified her favorable vote by the “urgency of implementation”, but noted that, given such a long document, “there will be another disagreement”.

The Left Bloc's vote, while positive, was made "very reluctantly," Sérgio Aires asserted. "Because one of the things it says is that the municipal housing that will be made available will be for affordable rentals. And we already know from experience that affordable rentals are not affordable; quite the opposite: they are subject to market rules. And, therefore, they are not affordable for most people," he explained.

Mariana Ferreira Macedo, of the PSD, considered that this intervention unit will allow us to "take care of the soul of Porto, which is the gateway to our city's historic center," and that it is important to have an ambitious plan. " We cannot limit ourselves to door-by-door or house-by-house rehabilitation ," she declared.

According to the municipality's announcement on its website, this intervention will be based on projects related to resolving housing, safety and public health problems, developing new accessibility links, creating green spaces and promoting socialization, associations and community spirit.

"The projects will be operationalized through 19 concrete actions, which include rehabilitation agreements that promote the retention of current residents; the development of new buildings that integrate housing, commerce, and services; the requalification of streets; the creation of mechanical means of mobility; the transformation of vacant land into a public garden; or the rehabilitation of the Recolhimento do Ferro building," it reads.

According to the municipality, the public investment “will be divided into 2.9 million euros for building renovation, 2.8 million for intervention in public spaces, around one million allocated to both green spaces and mechanical means”.