The Government has presented some legislative measures to simplify the urban licensing processes. According to the last edition of the supplement Público Imobiliário, this package includes the exemption of some licensing procedures required until now and the creation of a model of tacit deferment.
The aim is to combat the “slowness” and “complexity of licensing processes”. The measures, which are included in the “More Housing” (“Mais Habitação”) legislative package, include, for example, the creation of new cases of exemption. Mário Campolargo, Secretary of State for Digitisation and Administrative Modernisation, said at the presentation session of the measures on 28 April that, in these cases, the building permit and the use authorisation will not be necessary. This is, in fact, replaced “by a simple prior communication” to municipal councils. The Government will also create a single online platform that will concentrate the submission of applications in a single place.
The City Councils’ procedures are also covered by these simplification measures. The Minister of Housing, Marina Gonçalves, also took the opportunity to announce the creation of a model of tacit approval, in which the local authorities have to comply with the legal deadlines, otherwise the requests will be automatically approved .
Gonçalves also announced the renewal of “excessive demands” in construction, defining in a clear way what can be requested by entities through municipal regulations: “There is here a work to revoke everything that are procedural norms that are today in a diploma that should only serve for technical norms and also eliminate some excessive demands that were made, namely in what concerns the type of kitchen or in the needs or requirements of bathrooms”, she added.
