THE LOOKOUT | Land Use Plan for Lisbon and Tagus Valley to be revised
Teresa Almeida, president of the Coordination and Regional Development Commission (CCDR) of Lisbon and the Tagus Valley
The president of the Commission for Coordination and Regional Development of Lisbon and the Tagus Valley says that the current regional plan for land use planning is out of date and will be subject to revision “soon”.
The president of the Commission for Coordination and Regional Development (CCDR) of Lisbon and the Tagus Valley said that “a resolution will be forthcoming” for the revision of the Regional Planning Plan for the Territory (PROT) of Lisbon and the Tagus Valley, which should be updated later this year. Teresa Almeida was heard in Parliament, on the 17th of January, in the context of the damage identified in the Lisbon region by the intense rains in December, which affected several municipalities and caused compensation of around 185 million euros.
Questioned by the deputies about the lack of an updated PROT for the region, Teresa Almeida stated that it will be forthcoming. “We are aware that we will soon have a resolution to be able to start this procedure. It is our will-the CCDR-to be able to implement it also in the shortest possible time and, within the knowledge we have, it will still be during this year of 2023 that the PROT of the region of Lisbon and Vale do Tejo will be developed ”, he said Is it over there.
The official highlighted that the Regional Plan for Spatial Planning (PROT) currently in force in the Lisbon Metropolitan Area is from 2002 and in the West and Tagus Valley is from 2009. “It is a fact that we feel the lack of a more up-to-date document. By coincidence, I was president of CCDR in 2010 and 2012 and I left this project reviewed in time for it to be deliberated by the Council of Ministers. But, however, the government fell and the next government did not resume the process. It was completed with all participations, public consultations and, therefore, it was a more current document”, she explained.
Teresa Almeida highlighted that PROT “will obviously be an instrument of great importance”, namely for monitoring phenomena such as the floods that occurred in December. The official also referred that, following the floods, mayors expressed concerns about how to safeguard hydrological risks in the region, so “the desire soon arose to set up a working group in the context of the Metropolitan Area of Lisbon, with the mayors, with the Portuguese Environment Agency and with CCDR”.
The president of CCDR also added that a group meeting had already taken place on January 13 and work would be carried out during the year, estimating that in December “the metropolitan intervention plans will be presented, which have to do with this process of intervention, adaptation and risk mitigation in priority territories”.
Teresa Almeida also highlighted that Portugal is starting a new cycle of community support and that “one of the concerns that preside over this funding cycle has to do exactly with climate change and the whole issue of sustainability”, so a plan of intervention in the territory can be useful in formulating applications.