The demolition of 800 alleged ‘second homes’ in the Ria Formosa began on Wednesday and was described as the beginning of a process that is ‘20 years late’ by the Environment Minister who added that these demolitions are just the start of a wider operation.
"This process is in its infancy. It is a process that is 20 years late, but today is the start," the minister told reporters during the launching of operations on Ramalhete in the Ria Formosa.
According to Jorge Moreira da Silva, the 800 demolitions taking place under the Polis Litoral Ria Formosa programme "are important, but it is clear that there is still need, in relation to other areas and to other parts of the Maritime Public Domain, in the (Ria Formosa) barrier islands, to find solutions that are feasible."
The demolitionson the Ria Formosa islands should carry on until next summer and the next step will be to demolish ‘second homes’ at the west and east ends of Faro Beach (116 buildings) and in Hangares and at the lighthouse on the island of Culatra.
In the afternoon, the minister and his entourage including the presidents of the Polis Ria Formosa Society and Faro Council attended the beginning of work on Ramalhete, close to Faro, where machines began demolishing one cluster of 23 buildings that served mainly for fishing support, an occupation that clearly is no longer needed in the Minister’s utopian view of clear beaches.
It remains a mystery why the Faro council president was present for the inaugural demolitions as his council assembly has voted against these harsh measures and voters have been waiting for an injunction to at least pause these moves while the legal aspects of making people homeless is looked into.
On Deserta island 193 buildings are to be wiped from the map with seven small buildings being kept as these belonging to the University of Algarve and somehow are exempt from the treatment dished out to individual owners. On Hangars there are three buildings owned by the Navy which will remain unharmed. On Culatra, 113 buildings are next in line for the bulldozers.
Seven families from the Côco and Rata islands will be relocated to Institute for Housing and Urban Renewal housing or ‘taken in by households.’
Candida Pestana from Polis said that there will also be "rental solutions in Olhão."
Davis Santos of CCRD-Algarve said that the whole Polis scheme has been run back to front and the first thing was to have been to build alternative homes for those that the Polis programme planned to displace. This has not happened in any instance. "No one will be homeless", assured the minister.
The reshaping and tidying up of the dunes and lagoons will cost €7.5 million yet no money is available for rehousing those who will lose the roof over theirheads.
Shortly, the island of São Lourenço will get the same treatment where there are 20 families living in their first and only homes, not 7 as the police claim.
This programme may be 20 years late but the cursory treatment of families, with almost zero attention paid to their future accommodation, is a sad reflection on Portugal's priorities.
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