Embargoed Hilton development: some of apartments under demolition order already sold

At least nine of the 37 apartments built on the top three floors of the Hilton Cascais Residences in Parede, Cascais, and now under a demolition order have already been sold. 

Expresso highlights the extent of complications behind this curved ball thrown into the mix years after a citizens group raised questions about the deal, reportedly ‘largely signed off’ by the then deputy mayor of Cascais, now the AD government’s Minister of Infrastructures and Housing, Miguel Pinto Luz.

Pinto Luz has said that he ‘trusts in Portuguese justice’ and has not yet even been informed whether he is part of the investigation underway – but it is another less than ideal situation on the government’s increasingly complicated landscape this summer, in which various ministers are in the public eye for less than positive reasons.

In this case, Expresso explains that the apartments “are part of the built area that the Public Prosecutor’s Office (MP) is seeking to have demolished in a case currently before the Administrative and Tax Court of Sintra, on the grounds that they exceed the permitted height. 

“In addition to these, another 44 apartments have also been sold, according to the real estate agency JLL’s website.

“If the court ultimately orders the demolition, both the municipality and the developer are likely to face substantial compensation claims, given that the asking prices advertised by the agency range from €625,000 (a one-bedroom apartment) to €5.1 million (a four-bedroom duplex on the ninth floor with a gross floor area of 188 square metres).

“A single 58-square-metre one-bedroom apartment is listed for sale at double the price of the 823-square-metre plot of land within the National Ecological Reserve that Cascais Municipality sold to the real estate company Encosta da Parede in 2020 for €312,000 (the apartment costs €625,000). That plot, together with another 250-square-metre parcel within the Maritime Public Domain (DPM) and a public access road, was used to dilute the development’s construction density. However, the attempt to privatise the DPM area (including rocky land south of the coastal road) is the subject of separate court proceedings that are still ongoing. JLL is marketing the Hilton Cascais as being “next to the beach, on a stone platform stretching out to the sea.”

In the administrative case brought by the Public Prosecutor’s Office, suspicions are raised not only about the land sale itself, but also about planning approvals that allegedly breach the Municipal Master Plan (PDM) and Maritime Public Domain regulations – involving several municipal officials, including the current mayor, Nuno Piteira Lopes, his predecessor Carlos Carreiras, and former deputy mayor, now Minister for Infrastructure and Housing, Miguel Pinto Luz, adds Expresso.

The lawsuit seeks to halt construction, which was still ongoing late last week despite Cascais Municipality confirming that it had been formally notified “on July 22.” 

“The municipality should order the water, electricity and gas supplies to the construction site to be cut off,” Pedro Jordão, a lawyer and one of the signatories of the complaint submitted to the Attorney General’s Office (PGR) in 2023 by the SOS Quinta dos Ingleses movement, told Expresso.

The paper adds that Cascais municipality has stated only that it will “submit its defence by October 6” and that “the project referred to in the lawsuit was filed with Cascais Municipality in 2017, and its planning permission was approved in 2019 by the councillor responsible for urban planning at the time.” It also argues that the process “includes all the required documentation, including favourable internal and external technical opinions and approvals from the competent authorities.”

Similarly, Miguel Pinto Luz—who, while serving as deputy mayor, publicly announced the construction of the hotel in a 2019 interview, months before it was formally approved by the municipal executive—declined to comment on the merits of the legal proceedings while the case remains before the courts. In a written response to Expresso, the minister noted that the lawsuit concerns “administrative acts carried out over a period of around fifteen years by different municipal bodies and office holders,” adding that the decisions taken during that period “were supported by technical and legal opinions issued by the municipal services.” Pinto Luz further stated that “no decision contrary to those opinions was ever made” and assured that the municipality would exercise its right to defend itself in court.

Former councillor Clemente Alves (CDU) accuses the municipality of “favouring private real estate interests at the expense of the public interest,” recalling that, in addition to the alleged irregularities concerning the increased value of the land and the inclusion of Maritime Public Domain areas in the calculations, there was also “a waiver of urban planning compensation payments.” 

According to Alves’ estimate, these payments could have amounted to “around €24 million for the municipality, enough to build 300 affordable housing units,” but instead totalled only one-tenth of that figure.

The Hilton case is also the subject of a criminal investigation by the Public Prosecutor’s Office into suspected offences related to the sale of municipal land by Cascais Municipality to Encosta da Parede – now wholly owned by a Luxembourg-based real estate collective investment company, which did not respond to Expresso, for the purposes of the paper’s exclusive article.

Pedro Jordão stressed that the investigation concerns possible offences of “misconduct in public office, influence peddling and corruption.” The investigation remains under judicial secrecy.

Source: EXPRESSO