Request for prior information (PIP) without green light from opposition parties. The university and the local authority remain keen to move forward.
Universidade Nova de Lisboa wants to build a real estate development on the site of its Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities (FCSH), on Avenida de Berna in Lisbon, with a floor area of more than 18,000 square meters (m2) and a construction area of almost 30,000. Although the request for prior information (PIP) was rejected by the local authority, the desire to get the project underway remains.
According to the Público newspaper, this real estate operation will allow the public higher education institution to finance the transfer of the FCSH to facilities to be built on the Campolide campus.
However, the project was rejected on March 20 at a Lisbon City Council meeting. All the opposition parties voted against it, criticizing what they consider to be the “lack of compensation for the community”, especially in terms of green spaces and parking, as well as encouraging “real estate speculation”.
Despite the rejection of the PIP, Universidade Nova and Lisbon City Council assure the newspaper that the objective remains unchanged.
For the municipality, “the non-approval means the rejection of a project that would make it possible to create more housing in the city of Lisbon, in a central and markedly tertiary area”, also stressing the fact that the construction in the space occupied by the FCSH is “necessary” for the transfer of the faculty.
For its part, Universidade Nova de Lisboa says that it “will not take any decision and maintains its desire to move forward with the construction of the new Nova FCSH facilities on the Campolide campus”, taking into account that the “non-approval of the PIP does not constitute the final decision” of the local authority.
