"Open Parque Mayer to the city, improving access, establishing new flows and dynamics that catalyze and facilitate the use of space and cumulatively improving security conditions", reads the proposal that Lusa had access to.

Authored by the Urban Planning councilor, Joana Almeida (independent elected by the Novos Tempos PSD/CDS-PP/MPT/PPM/Aliança coalition), this proposal is part of the agenda of the next public meeting of the Lisbon City Council, which was scheduled for today, but was postponed to May 8, an official source from the local authority indicated.

"12 years after the PPPM came into effect, it is clear that, in the Parque Mayer area, which is part of Execution Unit II, the objectives have not been achieved and the planned actions have not been carried out, leaving this territory as a degraded and characterless space, in need of integrated intervention that meets the guidelines and strategies defined for the city", says the Urban Planning councilor in the proposal.

The PPPM was based on the need to "organize, characterize and articulate three large public use areas with the city" and relate them to the surrounding areas, foreseeing the creation of a "living space" for cultural entertainment, complemented by a multiplicity of uses, which extend to the adjacent areas of the Parque Mayer enclosure, namely through new urban routes.

According to councilor Joana Almeida, the lack of implementation of the actions planned in the PPPM for the area of the Parque Mayer enclosure is due to the "unsuitability of the proposed solutions to the evolution of environmental, economic, social and cultural conditions, which make the urban model enshrined in the plan inadequate to the evolution of current development perspectives".

In addition to suggesting increasing the openness of Parque Mayer to the city, the proposal to amend the PPPM aims to implement a set of cultural infrastructures, in line with the program defined by the Culture department.

With this proposal, the Lisbon local authority intends to "introduce greater flexibility of uses, namely by making it possible to complement the cultural project with other uses" and consolidate the protection measures for the Lisbon Botanical Garden, classified as a national monument, to prevent the plan's actions from interfering with the existing walls or causing variations in the edaphoclimatic conditions and groundwater of this green space, which could jeopardize the existing plant species.

Another proposed change is to reconcile the concepts and criteria of the PPPM with the Municipal Master Plan, namely in terms of sustainability issues, "foreseeing the increase in green roof areas and the reduction of underground parking area (in order to minimize the interference of building with groundwater flows)", states the document signed by the Urban Planning councilor.

In this context, it proposes the opening of "a 15-working day period for preventive participation", so that citizens can express their opinions and present suggestions on the amendment of the PPPM.

Located next to Avenida da Liberdade, on the west side, between Rua do Salitre and Praça da Alegria, Parque Mayer was inaugurated on June 15, 1922, and is considered an iconic space in the city of Lisbon, intrinsically associated with the theater of review.

The executive of the Lisbon City Council, which is composed of 17 members, includes seven elected members of the "Novos Tempos" coalition (PSD/CDS-PP/MPT/PPM/Aliança) -- who are the only ones with assigned portfolios and who govern without an absolute majority --, three from the PS, two from the PCP, three from Cidadãos Por Lisboa (elected by the PS/Livre coalition), one from Livre and one from BE.

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