In a private meeting of the municipal executive, the proposal endorsed by Mayor Carlos Moedas (PSD) was approved with the votes in favor from the PSD/CDS-PP leadership, abstentions from PS and PCP, and opposition from Livre, Cidadãos Por Lisboa (elected by the PS/Livre coalition), and BE, according to the city council.
The proposal, which still needs approval from the Lisbon Municipal Assembly, involves the exchange of a municipal land in Quinta das Garridas, Benfica, for two buildings owned by the Irmandade do Santíssimo Sacramento da Igreja da Vitória, one located in Baixa Pombalina and the other in the Graça area.
The PSD/CDS-PP leadership indicates that this property exchange will allow the creation of a municipal affordable housing block in Baixa Pombalina for young people and professionals, such as police officers, nurses, doctors, and teachers, as well as two non-profit intergenerational centers: one in Graça for seniors and university students and another in Quinta das Garridas, Benfica, with 120 beds for the elderly and a nursery.
The exchange between the Lisbon City Council and the Irmandade do Santíssimo Sacramento involves the transfer to the latter of the municipal land at Quinta das Garridas, valued at 1.8 million euros, with the condition that the Irmandade commences construction of the new intergenerational center within a year, involving an investment of 25 million euros, according to a source from social democrat Carlos Moedas’s office.
“For the purpose of the exchange and considering the mandatory allocation of facilities to support the elderly population on the municipal land at Quinta das Garridas for 50 years, a value of 1,898,618.74 euros was determined,” states the proposal, noting that the buildings of the Irmandade have a total value of 13.78 million euros.
Given that the value of the municipal building offered in the exchange is less than that of the Irmandade’s buildings, “to achieve economic balance in the contract, the municipality will have to pay the Irmandade in cash to match the difference in the amount of 11,885,906.26 euros,” according to the document.
The difference of 11.88 million euros will only be paid by the municipality on the date of the contract signing, updated by the price index variation published by INE for the cost per square meter of construction in Lisbon, “calculated from the date the memorandum of understanding was signed on 13/05/2025 until the actual payment date.”
Promised more than 30 years ago to the Benfica parish, the intergenerational center project at Quinta das Garridas moves forward with the approval of this proposal, and the construction is expected to be completed “by 2028,” with no charges to the city council.
For the Cidadãos Por Lisboa (CPL), who voted against, this exchange shows that Carlos Moedas’s electoral promise in the 2021 council elections about the intergenerational centers “comes, delay after delay, to a total failure.”
“We have neither centers nor construction, not even a cent to build them in the various budgets. Now, at the last minute, the matter is passed to a private management structure without a public tender. We also have concerns about the uncertainty surrounding the exchanged buildings, their conditions, and final destination, which are not clear in the proposal,” the CPL remarked.
The electoral program of the “New Times” coalition (PSD/CDS-PP/MPT/PPM/Aliança) pledged the construction of four intergenerational centers, one of them in Bairro das Garridas, but the promise remains unfulfilled after nearly four years in office.
In the private meeting, the municipal executive unanimously approved motions of condolence from PSD/CDS-PP, PCP, and Livre for the death of Eduardo Gageiro, a prominent figure in humanist photography in Portugal.
