A tale of Two Saints

The mayor of Lisbon would like to reevaluate some housing and development strategies.

Like many cities, we’re reassessing our post-pandemic priorities and putting the key workers that drove Lisbon through the Covid-19 crisis at the top of the list. Now is the moment to do things differently.

Lisbon has benefited enormously in recent years from the millions of tourists who throng our cobbled streets and enjoy our world-famous restaurants and bars, but we’ve paid a social price.

Essential workers and their families have increasingly been forced out as Airbnb-style holiday rentals have taken over a third of Lisbon’s city centre properties, pushing up rental prices, hollowing out communities and threatening its unique character. 

Now we want to bring the people who are Lisbon’s lifeblood back to the centre of the city as we make it greener, more sustainable and ultimately, a better place to both live and visit.

Now, in this letter, the mayor says they're going to, I think, subsidize lanlords who rent to "essential workers" at what we have to assume are affordable rates although that can defined as anything.  Also it doesn't say the plan is to ban STRs altogether. It says "replace some Airbnbs" with affordable housing. And, again, they're doing this through a program that apparently pays money to landlords so.. this whole thing may be more about the gesture than it is about actually meeting the need.  We'd have to know more in order to say for sure.

Still, if we take Lisbon's plan at face value, if we assume it is a good faith effort to reclaim the city from the rot of over-tourism, then we might contrast it with what's going on in New Orleans where we continue to move ahead with evictions, even while we bend over backward to accommodate the owners of short term rentals whose licenses are due to expire. 

Meanwhile we've somehow decided our "affordable housing" policy is giving public money to Marcel Wisznia's bowling alley dormitory.

As a condition of getting a property tax break from the Industrial Development Board through a program known as payment in lieu of taxes, the developers agreed to set aside 40 of the project’s 218 units for those making between 60% and 80% of the area's median income. Those units would rent for less than $1,000 a month, while others in the complex will go for between $1,400 and $1,500.

“This will help us in our ability to provide affordable housing for working people here in this city,” Banks said.

The Two Saints project has drawn a mixed reaction. Some, including Mayor LaToya Cantrell’s administration and some affordable housing groups, have argued it will provide much-needed housing for lower income residents. Critics have said the prices for the units would still leave them out of reach of many and argued the co-living model is unlikely to be desirable

Ha ha, "unlikely to be desirable."  Ya think?  Cramming multiple <strike>families</strike> sorry.. individual 20 somethings.. nobody is going to move their family into a dorm...  into a "communal living space" is a brilliant idea in the middle of a pandemic.  Brilliant.

Also... there is nothing stopping these from being Airbnbs anyway.  The new zoning rules allow it. In fact, they encourage STRs in that area.  Ultimately, you have to assume that's what the project was designed for in the first place.