The Lisbon City Council’s former Urbanism officer, who served from 2007 to 2019, is accused by the Public Prosecutor’s Office of violating approximately 15 urban regulations. The violations allegedly occurred in collaboration with a former municipal director, during the authorization of expansions for two restaurants, resulting in the creation of SUD Lisboa, inaugurated in 2016 on Avenida de Brasília.
The former municipal official is also charged with misconduct and violating urban rules.
In addition to licensing a large basement in a “high flood risk area,” the Public Prosecutor’s Office highlights illegalities in extending the space’s concession from 35 to 50 years and authorizing a reduction in parking.
The indictment, dated May 5th, alleges that these crimes occurred after the original concessionaire of the two restaurants transferred its concession to two companies of the Sana Group, following a series of negotiations.
At the time, the spaces were managed by the Lisbon Tourism Association, and the transfer between concessionaires involved the original concessionaire’s payment of debts amounting to hundreds of thousands of euros.
“The projects approved by [the defendants] in the end significantly increased the existing commercial area, benefiting the concessionaires and allowing for a basement of far greater proportions than needed for alleged technical requirements,” the Public Prosecutor’s Office notes, emphasizing that it did not alter the “long-standing rent.”
“All this was coordinated between the defendants and the concessionaires, as such development served their economic interest and debt recovery to Lisbon City Council and the Lisbon Tourism Association, to the detriment of the public purposes to be achieved, namely through the RPDM [Lisbon Master Plan Regulation],” summarizes Joaquim Morgado, a prosecutor at the Lisbon Public Prosecutor’s Office.
Under current legislation, the crime of misconduct is punishable by two to eight years in prison, and violation of urban rules with a fine or imprisonment of up to three years.
In 2016, the Lisbon City Council halted construction, now under suspicion, for four months.
Separately, according to the Public Prosecutor’s Office, legal proceedings are underway in the Lisbon Administrative Court to restore the space’s legality.
