Amendment to the Legal Regime of Urban Planning Management Instruments

The Legal Regime of Urban Planning Management Instruments (RJIGT) was amended by the Decree-Law No. 117/2024, of 30 December, which enters into force on 29.01.2025 (with the exception of the amendments made to the article No. 199 of the RJIGT, which entered into force on 31.12.2024).

This amendment to the RJIGT is included in of the so-called "Construir Portugal" program, aiming to facilitate the "creation of housing solutions that meet the criteria of controlled costs and of sale at affordable prices, thus promoting a greater social balance and allowing the portuguese families to have access to decent housing".

Among these changes to the RJIGT we highlight the following:

 

Reclassification to urban soil for housing and complementary uses purposes

A special and faster legal regime is foreseen, operationalized through a simplified amendment to the Municipal Master Plan, which allows the reclassification of land, to urban soil for housing and complementary uses purposes, provided that the following requirements are met:

• "a) Ensure the consolidation and coherence of the urbanistic operation to be developed with the already existing urban area;
• b) Ensure that at least 700/1000 of the total construction area above ground is destined for public housing, or for housing of «moderate value»;
• c) Ensure that an execution unit is delimited and developed;
• d) Ensure the existence of general and local infrastructures, as well as the necessary equipments for collective use and that provide adequate green spaces to cover the needs that arise from the new uses;
• e) Ensure it is compatible with the local housing strategy, the municipal housing charter or the housing exchange mechanism".

 

Creation of the concept of housing of "moderate value"

"Moderate value" housing is considered to be the one "in which the price per m2 of gross private area does not exceed the value of the median sale price per m2 of housing for the national territory or, if higher, 125% of the value of the median sale price per m2 of housing for the municipality where the property is located, up to a maximum of 225% of the national median value".

 

Limitations to the reclassification to urban soil

This reclassification to urban soil may not affect:

• areas integrated in the National System of Classified Areas;
• danger zones of establishments that are covered by the major accident prevention legal regime;
• areas covered by special coastal programs, public water reservoirs and estuaries;
• areas foreseen in the Flood Risk Management Plans as being of significant potential flood risk;
• hydro-agricultural developments;
• certain types of areas included in the National Agricultural Reserve and in the National Ecological Reserve.

 

Intervention of the Municipal Assembly

The reclassification to urban soil is implemented through a deliberation of the municipal assembly, after a proposal presented by the municipal council. The proposal drafted by the municipal council is subjected to public discussion, for a minimum period of 20 days.

The definition of the soils to be reclassified must be included in a technical opinion issued by the municipal services or by another contracted entity with technical competence for such purpose.

If within a period of 5 years, extendable only in exceptional situations, the planned urbanistic operations are not executed, the reclassification to urban soil is forfeited.

 

Clarification regarding the suspension of rules in “urbanizable areas” and in areas of “planned urbanization”

On 31.12.2024 ended the deadline for the incorporation, into the municipal and into the intermunicipal territorial plans, of the new land classification rules, namely regarding the so-called "urbanizable areas" and the "areas of planned urbanization".

In the territorial plans in which such new land classification rules were not been embraced by 31.12.2024, and until the date in which these rules are adopted, the norms related to the so-called "urbanizable areas" and to the "areas of planned urbanization" that bear such classification in the territorial plans already in force are automatically suspended, and (in those same areas and while the suspension lasts) no urbanistic acts or operations that imply occupation, use and/or transformation of the soil may be carried out, under penalty of nullity.

This suspension of the norms in respect to the so-called "urbanizable areas" and the "areas of planned urbanization" does not prevent the execution of urbanistic operations in such "urbanizable areas" and in "areas of planned urbanization" whose purpose is housing or that is related to a housing and complementary use purpose, being applicable the aforementioned land reclassification procedure.

 

Right of preference

Municipalities benefit from a right of preference after the first transfer of buildings or fractions that were built on land reclassified as urban.

 

Land registry obligations

The reclassification to urban soil is subjected to land registration, upon registration to be officiously promoted by the municipal council.

Land registry is also mandatory to (i) the earmarking of housing of a "moderate value" and (ii) to the subjection to a sale price limitation of each autonomous fraction of a building in horizontal property and of each urban building destined for housing purposes.