A Polygraph article e another from Público and before that two posts by former journalist José António Cerejo on the social network Facebook (here e here), with more than a hundred and a half shares. In the last two weeks, much has been said about the Alto do Duque Urban Park and the old Restelo Aquapark with many doubts and some misconceptions to the mix. Lisboa Para Pessoas visited the site, located in the parish of Belém, contacted the Câmara de Lisboa and wrote the following text in collaboration with the group Neighbors of Bethlehem.
28 years ago the Restelo Aquaparque closed. A tragedyinvolving the death of two children, who were sucked into two pipes without the protective netting they should have haddictated the closure of that space. For more than two decades, the "Aquaparque of Death", as it became known, remained abandoned (until mid-2018). An attempt was made to grant the space to a private company for the creation of a theme parkbut the project never went forward, as the Diário de Notícias wrote that yearIn a press release, he explained the alternative then being studied by the Lisbon City Hall: to create a playground.
From water park to theme park. From theme park to playground... with a cycling school
After the tragic context of Aquaparque and the legal conflicts that prevented any intervention in that place, we tried to return that area to the Monsanto Forest Park. Thus, part of the enclosure of the old aquatic complex was requalified by removing the swimming pools, planting trees and laying grass, just as the press wrote in 2018. A playground was also built among the pine trees, in the middle of the meadow. This area is immediately open to the public and integrated in the Monsanto Forest Park. But the municipality has also baptized the space as Parque Urbano do Alto do Duque or Parque Urbano da Quinta de Santo António.
The various buildings that made up the Aquaparque remain closed. The renovation work on this old building began in 2018 and was completed a year later (Contract No. 41/16/DMEVAE/DEV/DCREV). The opening was planned first for the spring and then for the fall, but we are already there. From outside, through the bars and gates that prevent access to the space, it is possible to see pedestrian paths laid out, trees planted and in apparently good condition, and the whole complex with a good exterior appearance and with the "painting up to date". But, since this is a redevelopment that was completed two years ago, there are now several unwanted weeds growing along the paths and next to the buildings.
According to statements by José Sá Fernandes, Lisbon City Councilman responsible for the Green Structure, to the press in 2018, the plan was to create in this space an indoor playground, "one thing that Lisbon needs, is places that have coverage for when the weather is bad, rain, wind, so people can enjoy".explained the mayor at the time. Similar statements made by Sá Fernandes in a Decentralized Public Meeting of the Lisbon City Council for the parish of Belém in the same year. With a garden area, a concessionaire cafeteria, and restrooms, the space would be open every day to families for birthday parties and other activities that could benefit from the proximity of nature and Monsanto. The gates and railing would keep the enclosure secure at night.
According to the project released then and recovered by the collective Vizinhos de BelémThe indoor playground would be divided into four age groups - babies, pre-school, school, and teenagers - with age-appropriate equipment, and would also have a foosball table area, tables for board games, and fitness equipment outside, protected by shingles. "I think it will look very nice"Sá Fernandes commented to journalists at the time. But it didn't stay. The project of the Urban Park of Alto do Duque seems abandoned since the requalification of the building completed in 2019, which motivated José António Cerejo to launch the discussion on his Facebook page: “Have a bet? Before the next local elections the Alto do Duque Urban Park will be inaugurated here - in the space of the old Monsanto aquapark, next to the Caselas neighborhood in Lisbon. Nobody told me, but I'm guessing.wrote the former Público journalist, taking the opportunity to criticize the Lisbon city councilman who will not run again in September: "As a great organizer, we all know the merits of Zé [José Sá Fernandes]: a specialist in inaugurating unfinished works (...); a master in awarding concessions of public spaces and equipment to dubious companies, through non-transparent processes, which then have to be annulled, end up not materializing, or become tainted by various suspicions."
To make it clear: the publication by José António Cerejo refers to the inner space of the Urban Park, the one circumscribed by fences; the outer area is open. To Lisboa Para Pessoas, the Councilman José Sá Fernandes' Cabinet confirms it: "The Urban Park in question has been open for several years and all the fencing has been removed. Access is completely free and it has a children's and youth park available, picnic areas and seating areas. It is a space that maintains a central clearing with good sun exposure and is visited by many users of the Forest Park. After all the demolition work, today Monsanto has recovered almost 3 hectares of the Forest Park, in a remarkable process of naturalization."
During the visit that Lisboa Para Pessoas made to the site, it didn't find any indication or accessible sign of the Alto do Duque Urban Park. The name of the space appears, however, in a map of the walking trails of Monsanto that is pasted near the main entrance of the old Aquaparque, confirming that it integrates both the building protected by the railing and the gates, as the outer part. The space open to the public appears to be clean but not much use. There is an amphitheater where the municipality wanted events to be held, but we could find no "digital trace" of anything ever having happened there. A playground right next door looks new. Some municipal police ribbons surround it; it looks like they were put up during the pandemic restrictions and have never been taken down.
The opening stalemate and the cycling school
The redevelopment of the circumscribed Urban Park area was completed in the summer of 2019, as noted by the Neighbors of Bethlehemand the opening planned for the fallaccording to declarations from the Mayor, Fernando Medina, at another Decentralized Public Meeting for the parish of Belem, on September 11, 2019. The executive also made it clear, at that time, that the two rooms in the building where the cafeteria and the birthday party area would be located would have to go out to public tender to be awarded to private entities. While preparing the launch for the public auction, the Chamber said it was still waiting for EDP Distribuição and EPAL to execute the necessary works to adequately serve the main building with electricity and water. Subsequently, while those works were taking place, air conditioning equipment installed in the building was stolen, which led the Municipal Police to be present 24 hours on site since the end of 2019.
Only in 130th Public Meeting of the Lisbon City Councilon May 27th, 2020, councilman José Sá Fernandes managed to launch Proposal n.º 80/2020 concerning the "Concession of private use of a delimited plot of land in the old Quinta de Santo António (Ex-Aquaparque), including the buildings, constructions, equipment and the surrounding area, located at Avenida das Descobertas, in the Monsanto Forest Park in Lisbon" (the Parque Urbano do Alto do Duque has also been referred to as Parque Urbano da Quinta de Santo António). The discussion and vote on the proposal was eventually postponed because it was in the private domain of the City Council, according to several councilors present at the meeting, and it did not appear on any agenda again until last July.
Last July 30th, was approved in a Board Meeting o “Collaboration Protocol between the Municipality of Lisbon, the Portuguese Federation of Cycle Tourism and Bicycle Users and the Núcleo Cicloturista de Alvaladefor the granting of a license for private use of the municipal public domain of a delimited plot of land at Quinta de Santo António, including the buildings, constructions, equipment and the surrounding area, in the Monsanto Forest Park (PFM), for the implementation of the Bicycle Training and Learning Centeras per the proposal".. According to the minutes of the meeting, the proposal, which has already been made public in the Municipal Bulletin, was approved with votes in favor from the PS, PSD, and CDS, and abstentions from the PCP and BE.
According to the protocol, the Federação Portuguesa de Cicloturismo e Utilizadores de Bicicleta (FPCUB) (Portuguese Federation of Cycle Tourism and Bicycle Users), which regularly promotes, together with the municipality, introductory bicycle courses, and the Núcleo Cicloturista de Alvalade (NCA), which launched the Escolinha de Bicicleta, the first bicycle school in the country, having provided bicycle learning to hundreds of people since its creation, will have access for 25 years - a long period in the life time, priorities and strategy of a city - to the spaces where the cafeteria and the birthday party room were once planned to be installed.
According to the protocol, the installation of the so-called Bicycle Use Training and Learning Center of Lisbon has three phases:
- In the first phase the school will start operating with "student prices below the current market rates";
- For the second phase It is planned to create a store, a workshop, bicycle parking, a cafeteria, and structures for washing and renting bicycles;
- In the third phase The installation of a kiosk and a new playground outside is planned.
The center is intended for three types of bicycle users: leisure user (occasional user; rides a bike for example on the weekend); city/mobility user (rides a bike in the city every day); and BTT user . The protocol gives the right to the FPCUB and the NCA to start paying current expenses (water, electricity, etc) "from the second phase of the project" and establishes a monthly income of 80 euros during the first phase; and 2300 euros from the second year of the second phase on.
"There are no projects or equipment in the municipality of Lisbon that allow bicycle learning at affordable prices and in a massified manner, justifying the support of the Municipality of Lisbon to projects of this nature", reads the document, where it is also stated that "despite the increase in the number of bicycle users in the city of lisbon in the last years, there are still many people who, being able to do so, do not use the bicycle in their commuting because they do not know how to ride a bicycle". Notwithstanding the rationale behind this protocol, it should be noted that it was established between the municipality and two entities without the prior existence of a public tender, for example, which would have given the opportunity to other associations and bodies connected with two wheels to participate or show interest in the Training and Learning Center project.
It should also be noted that João Gonçalves Pereira, CDS councilman without portfolio, is president of one of the associations, the NCA, and therefore did not participate in the discussion and vote on the proposal. To Público newspaperJoão Gonçalves Pereira pointed out that the former Aquaparque "it is the ideal space. It allows the initiation to bicycle, it allows a small access to the contact between bicycles and cars and it has Monsanto right next door". "This is a space of service to the city. If we are investing in bike lanes, let's teach the people of Lisbon how to ride a bike."he added, pointing to the months of March and April next year for the start of the operation.
To Lisboa Para Pessoas, the Councilman José Sá Fernandes' Cabinet clarified that "the pandemic situation delayed the launching of any concession procedure aimed at these equipments given their greater operating complexity, as well as the lower investment capacity, and it was considered to postpone a decision". The same Office adds that "since the recovery of the buildings and equipment was concluded just before the outbreak of the pandemic - which as we know made it impossible to use structures of this nature for many months - and so that they would not be a potential focus of devaluation as a result of possible vandalism, it was decided to keep them closed". The autarchy highlights the "social and environmental added value" of the project now protocoled and says that "it is preferable that the site have a sports/social use rather than a strictly commercial use"It has a cafeteria and a party room.
The building of the Alto do Duque Urban Park will remain, with the FPCUB and the NCA, open to the public, and the initial plans to create a covered playground in that area have not been abandoned, since only two rooms will be assigned to the future Lisbon Bicycle Use Training and Learning Center. This means that the second publication by José António Cerejo on Facebook, in which the former journalist wrote that the entire Urban Park would be concessionaire for the bicycle school, contains false information, contrary to the assessment made by the newspaper Polygraph.
Article updated on 08/13/2021 with the addition of more information.
