Activists in Lisbon are calling for holiday lets in residential buildings to be banned after gathering the support of thousands of locals.
The Portuguese capital’s Movement for a Housing Referendum is set to present municipal authorities with a petition that has attracted 11,000 signatures, showing the scale of the city’s housing problem through 6,600 of its residents’ eyes, and 4,400 former Lisbonites the group says have been forced out due to the rising cost of living.
Momento da entrega de assinaturas na assembleia municipal da Lisboa.
— Movimento Referendo pela Habitação (MRH) (@ReferendoLX) November 11, 2024
Obrigado a todas as pessoas que sonham com a possibilidade de outra Lisboa. pic.twitter.com/2np2YG9o8g
Over 20,000 short-term lets
A surge in Portugal’s popularity with international overnight visitors over the last decade is driving economic growth in the southern European country and Lisbon is at the heart of that boom. A record 19 million overnight stays by tourists took place there over 2023, contributing 20 per cent to Lisbon’s coffers. This year looks no exception to that trend, after a record-breaking first half of 2024 for the country’s travel and tourism sector, with foreign visitor numbers up by 7.5% national statistics reveal.
Catering to the tourists, more than 20,000 dwellings are registered as holiday rentals in Lisbon, and, says Raquel Antunes, a member of the referendum movement, the city council continues to register housing as short-term lets without due regard to their impact.
60% of housing stock is holiday rentals
Housing in some areas of the city, including the historic waterfront Cathedral quarter and buzzing Alfama, the oldest neighbourhood in Lisbon, is now composed of over 60% holiday rentals, say the activists, a claim supported by a number of studies.
This map shows Airbnb licences in central Lisbon.
— Movimento Referendo pela Habitação (MRH) (@ReferendoLX) June 22, 2024
In some areas, 70 out of 100 homes have a Airbnb licence.
More than 500 entire buildings used as de facto hotels.
This is a disgrace and we should stop it.
We must revoke the touristic use of homes pic.twitter.com/cjEuz84bnu
That has pushed up rent levels by 94% in nine years, and real estate prices have rocketed by 186% in the same period, according to Confidencial Imobiliário housing data.
The proposed ban on holiday lets in buildings registered as “residential” would address the problem, Antunes told The Guardian, emphasising that the pressure group’s aim is not to wipe holiday rentals out but to migrate them to buildings properly undersigned for hospitality rentals, such as hotel apartments and hostels.
The city is not a “leisure centre”
But it’s not just house prices that are a cause for concern. The high proportion of short-term lets and their visitors, are turning communities into “temporary place consumption” or “leisure centres”, Antunes added, noting consequences such as increased noise, littering, pollution, overcrowding and the closure of local businesses.
If the referendum is successful, the ban on tourist flats in private residences “would be a great step in the right direction,” the activist 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.”
