Portugal: Ovar will add 30 apartments to its over 300 social housing units to help families in need.

Lisbon: By the end of the year, Ovar City Council plans to invest 3.7 million euros to build 30 subsidised rental apartments in the Sargaçal site, adding to the city’s current stock of around 300 social housing units. The current project, which has already been awarded, is funded by the Recovery and Resilience Program and has 15 months to be completed.

The project, which consists of 15 three-bedroom apartments and 15 two-bedroom apartments, aims to give families access to housing with the right conditions even if their financial circumstances make it impossible for them to rent on the regular market. As Domingos Silva, the mayor of Ovar shared, “Quality housing in decent conditions for all residents is a central priority for the municipality of Ovar”.

The municipality, which has a total area of 148 square kilometres, 17 kilometres of coastline, and approximately 55,400 residents, already has hundreds of homes under-supported rental arrangements in addition to these 30 dwellings, which are anticipated to be finished by the end of the first quarter of 2026. As the mayor further emphasised, “It is with this aim in mind that we have been working daily and seeking to provide new housing solutions in the municipality, in the certainty that, in terms of implementing the Local Housing Strategy, the municipality of Ovar is a reference in the country”.

The flats that will be constructed in Sargaçal will stand out due to their increased environmental consciousness. According to the local government, “energy efficiency was one of the main concerns of the project, choosing, for example, exterior walls in thermal block and doors in chipboard panels, covered in thermolaminated panels”.