Conceded to the company ABGolfe without public deed, the land served a municipal golf course. The history of this concession is "bizarre", says João Ferreira. The communist councilman asks for the return of the space to the city and to the Lisboans, and that it be integrated in the Bela Vista Urban Park.
Overlooking Lisbon (and the Airport), the Bela Vista Golf Course served the lovers of the sport during the few years it was active. It has been abandoned ever since: about 160 thousand square meters of land that the PCP councilmen of Lisbon's City Council, João Ferreira and Ana Jara, propose to give back to the city, requalifying the space and integrating it in the Bela Vista Urban Park, which is right next door.
The proposal has already been submitted for scheduling so that it can be discussed and appreciated by the remaining municipal executive, but João Ferreira was keen to present it "in very broad strokes" in one of the last public town hall meetings for having a "great interest for the public in general and for the Lisboans". “The story is rocky"said the communist councilman, explaining that the land "have been granted a concession to make a golf course" but "the deed was never done"and it is important "settle once and for all this dispute with the private entity to whom this land was granted".
At issue is the cession of land near the Airport and the Bela Vista neighborhood to the company ABGolf to build and operate a municipal golf course. The public auction process began in 1996 and culminated four years later, in 2000, with the signing of the necessary deed. However, in 2004, a decision by the Supreme Administrative Court, moved by a challenge from the other bidders, annulled the decision taken by the municipality because it considered the 25-year term defined for the concession illegal, with the legislation in force imposing that this term could not exceed 20 years.
The public tender procedure had to be repeated and the bids evaluated again by the jury. Once ABGolfe was selected again, the public deed was scheduled for April 12, 2010, but never took place - according to the PCP. "for reasons not attributable to the Lisbon City Council". The company, despite "urged several times to produce the documents", claimed that a new deed was not necessary since the court decision had only changed the term of the concession from 25 to 20 years.
Once the deed was scheduled, ABGolfe did not show up on the day of the ceremony, and the reasons it invoked were not accepted by the Lisbon Chamber as justification for the lack of attendance. "no effect" according to a "legal opinion from the Legal Department" of the municipality, as the PCP tells in the proposal document.
The Bela Vista Golf Course did work, but we can't figure out for how long. What is certain is that if we count with the deed done in 2000, the concession would end in 2020. João Ferreira asked, in the public town hall meeting, that this issue be solved since the lands of the old municipal golf course are abandoned and the situation has been getting worse. A Municipal Police report, cited by the communist councilmen, states "risks to the safety of people, whether residents in the surrounding area or users of adjacent public roads, due to the existence of degraded ponds, damaged protection nets, uncovered water/sewage collectors and other holes on the ground, movement of people and vehicles inside the premises, gates that appear to have been vandalized, to which must be added the uncontrolled growth of existing vegetation".
The PCP proposes that the nearly two thousand hectares of the old Bela Vista Golf Course be returned to the municipality and the city, and integrated into the adjacent Urban Park, with a project to be drawn up by the Municipal Directorate for the Environment and Green Spaces (DMAEV) of the municipality.
Only the integration of the land into the urban park makes sense in João Ferreira's view. "It doesn't make sense, never has, and even less will it make sense today for us to have a golf course there, with all that this implies in terms of water use and intensive irrigation. We have a Bela Vista Park next door that has guidelines - and rightly so - to invest in a rain-fed meadow; we're not going to put a sustainable land with intensive irrigation next to it.”
With the integration of these two thousand square meters in the Bela Vista Urban Park, Lisbon would gain a large and continuous green space. In fact, the Mata de Alvalade would be directly connected by the land of the old golf course to the Parque Urbano da Bela Vista, which already connects to the Parque Urbano do Vale da Montanha, the Parque Urbano do Casal Vistoso and the Parque Urbano do Vale de Chelas. Alvalade, Areeiro, Marvila and Beato - four parishes of the city would be connected by a green space.
You can see the PCP proposal here below:
