Lisbon Mayoral Candidates Attack Government's €2,300 'Moderate Rent' Benchmark
Leading candidates in the race for mayor of Lisbon have sharply criticized the central government's characterization of €2,300 per month as a "moderate rent," arguing the figure is profoundly disconnected from the financial reality of the Portuguese population. The criticism targets a key concept in Prime Minister Luís Montenegro's housing strategy.
Alexandra Leitão, the candidate for the Socialist Party (PS) and the 'Viver Lisboa' coalition, which includes Livre, Bloco de Esquerda, and PAN, condemned the benchmark during a campaign stop in São Domingos de Benfica. "€2,300, for Portugal, is double the average salary," Leitão stated. She warned that if government support is provided to private developers for rental projects with this price ceiling, landlords will naturally price their units at the maximum allowable amount. She argued that affordability should be defined by a household's capacity to pay, proposing that the "maximum value should correspond to 30% of the household's income."
João Ferreira, the candidate for the CDU (Portuguese Communist Party and Ecologist Party 'The Greens'), expressed a similar view, labeling the government's figure as "an affront." In comments to the press, Ferreira highlighted the disparity with national wages. "In a country where 60% of the active population earns a gross salary of 1000 euros or less, it's an affront that demonstrates how far from the reality of the overwhelming majority of the population this Government is," he said.
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Ferreira concurred with Leitão's position on linking rent to income, noting that the principle of a 30% effort rate is already a cornerstone of Lisbon's municipal housing regulations. Speaking after a meeting with local artists, the current CDU city councilor emphasized the importance of the municipal housing supply. He pointed to the city's 60 municipal neighborhoods where rents are adjusted to family income, generally not exceeding a 35% effort rate. "We talk much more about the housing crisis due to a lack of access to places to live," he concluded, stressing the need for more available housing stock.
The public criticism from the Lisbon mayoral hopefuls places the national government's housing policy under intense scrutiny. The debate centers on whether to stimulate the private market with incentives that may still result in rents that are unaffordable for the average worker, or to focus public resources on expanding the state-controlled housing supply with strict income-based rent controls. This policy disagreement is a central theme in the ongoing local election campaigns, particularly in the capital, which remains the epicenter of the country's housing affordability crisis.
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