Case Studies  The Lisbon Castle parish and the urban regeneration process

6.7. Conclusions and future visions

The measures adopted and implemented to benefit due urban and housing regeneration in the Castle neighbourhood require a critical over view.

Envisioning what the Castle parish will be in the future, as it is currently structured, there is still the need to respond to the necessities of the present and future population in terms of housing.

There is a lack of logically linked mid and long-term views, which consider the necessary conditions for the maintenance of the regenerated urban area and its economic and social sustainability.

Finishing the works, and with low rents (“social rents”) continuing, it is understandable that future maintenance is not an easy task. This situation doesn't allow the municipality to delegate responsibilities to owners and tenants. Neither does it promote the autonomy and independence of these agents. On the other hand, it is not clear that this will lead to successful solutions in fight against social exclusion.

What will be the economic behaviour of the buildings in the mid-term and long-term, in an inevitable situation where people change because of the population's age? Are the regenerated buildings in condition to fulfil their function in the future and be allocated to new tenants with new demands for comfort and infrastructures different from the current ones?

A “new tenant”, - a new profile of the Castle inhabitant is already appearing, necessarily with other characteristics to which the process must also draw its attention.

It is nevertheless necessary to see what are the vocations of the current population and in which fields and services they can be more usefully integrated.

On the other hand raises the question, who will be the future population, and what will its social, economic and cultural level be?

The scenarios can change from a society of single people or couples without children, to students or even the same impoverished population.

The last mentioned situation, however, would nullify municipal efforts to buy houses as a guarantee of the healthy miscegenation.

It is necessary to understand how it is possible to improve the local economic situation and how, in fact, to create a healthy, social diversity that helps to increase the economic growth, anchored through local energies, in the neighbourhood or in adjacent urban areas and within the context of City development.

New methodologies of evaluation must be used to understand whether social exclusion is being strengthened or not, or if a balanced level of integration and social miscegenation is being achieved, applying and developing local indicators in comparison with the City indicators.

In addition, it is also important to know what is the municipality's future income and budget.

However, and in accordance with the reality of the Castle process, and the questions that it raises, it is necessary to ask for, how the Castle neighbourhood and its population will live in the future.

Here we are facing an incognita; there are few studies and research works done about this subject. Interested investors are not to be seen, employment and education programmes for this or a wider area are unknown, incitement to invest or to create local divers enterprises are missing. The current reality and the present project in progress cannot ignore the future, and so there is a need to prepare the urban fabric for new economic approaches and a new generation of tenants that will create a more prosperous community.

Therefore in very recent time the new Lisbon Municipal Council decided to restructure the city council's departments. The “Castelo Project Unit” was created and its aim is to complete the current ongoing project.

As Castle project is one of profound urban regeneration where the new Lisbon Town Authorities has imposed a strategic change to realise the rest of the project in order to make housing and the urban fabric more appropriate for the future. In other words the general modernization of housing typologies is a new goal.

This is not an easy task considering that at present there is no longer the 20% of empty accommodation as a result of the moving of a part of very deprived population in the regenerated houses. That means it is necessary to find alternatives to achieve the goal according to the habits, rights and will of affected people.

It is planned to reduce administrative procedures as well as the time of construction works, due carrying work out on single buildings and no longer on groups. These measures demand special caution and evaluation because of the need of (public) space by the necessary workshops. Therefore it is useful to think about logistics as well as about financial matters and consequences.

It is important to explain that the reality and practice of the Integrated Castle Project is not transmissible to other historical areas where the practice has been carried out through occasional interventions in the buildings as well the public space.

In terms of the future, new legislation is in preparation that will reformulate the national urban regeneration programmes that foresee new mechanisms and operational approaches to optimise the investment according to the needs and the agents involved.

The urban regeneration process applies to an integrating action; there are several urban regeneration programmes, several programmes for social and economic development as well as for heritage safeguarding. It is necessary to use them from the vast perspective of the urban regeneration problematic.

It will also be necessary to promote the correlation between owners, economic agents, investors within their own resources and existing funding.

6.6 Monitoring and periodic evaluation    Annex 1