Lisbon residents call for a referendum on banning holiday lets in residential units

A petition with around 11,000 signatures is to be handed over to officials in Lisbon, Portugal, calling for a referendum on tourist banning holiday rentals in residential buildings.

The Movement for a Housing Referendum in Lisbon will present their petition to the head of the municipal assembly on Friday 8 November in what the group has said is the first step to reducing the impact on their local communities.

In the Santa Maria Maior district, the historic centre of Lisbon on the water’s edge that is home to the Lisbon Cathedral, the Moorish Castelo de São Jorge and the well-known Alfama neighbourhood, more than 60 per cent of housing is used for holiday rentals, according to the movement and several studies, Reuters reports.

In the past 10 years, Lisbon’s tourism sector has boomed, attracting more visitors than ever before, but with that has seen the amount of new holiday lets increase. Rent levels have soared by 94 per cent since 2015, while house prices have climbed 186 per cent, according to Confidencial Imobiliário housing data.

The Movement for a Housing Referendum says that holiday rentals are one of the causes of why it has become so difficult to afford a home in the Portuguese capital.

In addition to rising house prices, the overwhelming amount of tourists has also meant that some feel they have lost their sense of community, with some cases of people saying they feel isolated among the strangers passing in and out around them.

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The campaign group said that holiday rentals have turned their neighbourhoods into forms of “temporary place consumption” and that the use of the city as a “leisure centre” causes issues such as noise and dirt pollution, overcrowding and forcing out local shops.

The group believes that residents are choosing to leave Lisbon not just due to rising house prices, but because there is also a lack of quality of life.

Despite this, the group says that there are currently more than 20,000 apartments or houses registered as holiday rentals in Lisbon, and that their city council keeps accepting registrations.

The group is hoping that they will convince the local authorities to deal with housing and tourism accommodation as separate entities, as well as cancel agreements for holiday rentals registered in residential units and disallow any future registrations.

If the referendum is given the go-ahead, their ballot will need to be vetted by the Portuguese courts.

Group member Raquel Antunes told The Guardian that their aim was not to completely rid the city of tourist lets, but instead let them set up in buildings registered for commercial use such as hotel apartments and hostels.

“It would be a great step in the right direction,” she said. “Not only to listen to people but also to give them hope that we can make a city that is for everyone, not just for those who have money.”

The petition is made up of more than 6,600 signatures from Lisbon taxpayers by another 4,400 who aren’t registered in the city, but many of whom are former residents who were forced to leave the city due to rising prices, said Antunes.

Lisbon’s Mayor Carlos Moedas has previously said that the city plans on investing €800m in housing until 2026 to address the lack of affordable housing, saying that “an area of the city can’t be just for tourism or just for certain effects.”

However, with the record 19 million overnight stays by tourists in 2023 in the city, making up 20 per cent of Lisbon’s economy, Moedas is still embracing the boom they are experiencing.

“I think we’re still very far from over-tourism. We’re not at the levels of Venice or Barcelona. We should continue to bet on tourism, betting on quality tourism,” he said.

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