RRP has €1.2Bn for affordable housing

A government programme to support access to affordable housing has already secured €1.2Bn from the EU’s Recovery and Resilience Plan.

There has been a lack of new build affordable housing for the middle classes over the past two decades in Portugal, largely because the rising costs of building materials in recent years, a lack of highly qualified manpower (the best Portuguese builders work in other, mostly northern European markets where the pay is better) and high government and local council taxation makes it impossible for private developers to build it without running a loss.
So far some 42% of the €16.6Bn in the so-called EU ‘bazooka’ of recovery funds designed to kick-start Portugal’s economy has been allocated and the €1.2Bn earmarked for housing development is the largest single investment ever seen in Portugal for a generation.
The government already has three lines of investment for housing on the back of the RRP. These are three programmes coordinated by the Institute of Housing and Urban Rehabilitation (IHRU), namely the Housing Access and Support Programme, the National Fund for Temporary and Urgent Housing and the Affordable Public Housing Stock.
The beneficiaries of the programme are families who need affordable housing and other entities with housing solutions including local authorities, housing associations and cooperatives and property owners with property in run down areas.
Property developers via the real estate developers and investors association APPII are also lobbying the government through the secretary of state for Housing, Marina Gonçalves, to secure funds to build middle class housing for rent.
Portugal will also have to meet 35 measures to secure a payment of some €636.12 from the EU’s outright grants fund with the lion’s share earmarked for projects in the innovation area.