The culmination of the first phase of Ria Formosa island property demolitions has been scheduled for November 7th with 14 further properties to be removed in the settlement of Hangares and a further eight in the village of Farol, both on Culatra.
Locals applied to Loulé Court to have the seizure notices and demolition orders annulled but, despite the Minister of the Environment’s intervention when the media coverage gets uncomfortable, Polis Litoral Ria Formosa are carrying on like an automaton stuck in ‘demolish’ mode.
In the last three years almost 400 properties have been eradicated as the government carries out the Vila Real de Santo António to Vilamoura coastal plan that involves removing properties in a move to cleanse the islands of locals, replacing their properties with sand and, in many cases, a fine mix of asbestos from old corrugated roofing.
Before he became the Minister for the Environment, João Pedro Matos Fernandes, was a consultant at Quartenaire Portugal, becoming a director in 2009.
Quarternaire Portugal, Consultoria e Desenvolvimento, SA mainly is engaged in environmental and related studies, one of which was the basis of the ‘POAM Vilamoura-Vila Real de Santo António,’ the very plan that lays out a strategy for demolishing the properties on the Ria Formosa islands.
Fernandes often has expressed his concern and sympathy for those losing their properties but as the company of which he was a Director, submitted the report on which the coastal plan was based, he is unlikely to take action against his earlier recommendations.
The owners of the latest batch of houses to be torn down already have received notifications from Polis Litoral Ria Formosa, which itself is being wound up by the year-end, that the State is taking away their homes and will demolish them.
This legal action was scheduled for February this year but suspended until now as the court process gave temporary respite to owners.
In a communiqué sent to the press on September 28th, the Portuguese Communist Party said it has lodged a draft resolution in parliament, "recommending that the government puts an end to house demolitions on the islands of the Ria Formosa," in particular, those announced for November 7th in Farol and Hangars on the island of Culatra.
The Communists small a rat and say that, using the, "supposed intention of 'renaturalising' the barrier islands," the government intends “to prepare the way to deliver one of the most valuable areas of the national coastline into the hands of greedy private interests which will exploit this valuable natural heritage to their advantage while sacrificing the rights of the inhabitants, their way of life , their work and the conservation of nature.”
Whether this turns out to be true of not, the effect on islanders has been cruel, with the full weight of the State bearing down on their rights as citizens to remain in situ in properties that has permission to be built, for which council rates and water charges have been paid but which lack the necessary documentation to remain.
The Communist Party stated that the government, through its MPs, mayors and local leaders, "tries to pass on the idea that these will be the last demolitions, but we all know that following these new demolitions in Farol and Hangars, will come other demolitions in these and other settlements until nothing is left.”
Armona
Over on Armona, fourteen property owners have been served administrative possession orders dated for this Thursday, October 4th by which time they will have had to move out or be billed for demolition costs.
The short notice period may have made it impossible for owners to apply to the court in time to block the process.
Armona owners so far has avoided property demolitions but islanders there now face much the same process that their neighbours on Culatra and Faro island, have been subjected to.
Again, the Minister for the Environment has said that he will solve all problems by redrawing the urban area map for Armona, thus exempting 140 properties that technically are illegally sited - with the full knowledge of the Council which has been happy to collect property taxes over the years.
The Minister has yet to act to preserve the 140 properties nor is he involving himself in the seemingly random property possession orders and demolitions that are going ahead in the licensed urban concession area on Armona.
