Faro council has signed external contracts to restore, maintain and preserve the regional capital's parks and gardens after years of underinvestment.
The municipality is spending €67,699 with local contractors to ensure that the city's green spaces are renewed and "brought back to how they should be presented," according the the mayor.
Faro's downtown shopping area and its historic centre will continue to be maintained by council staff, with further contractors charged with sorting out the green areas in and near the county's schools.
These short-term, 90 day contracts will give time for the council to sort out who covers this work in the future, for which a tendering process already is underway.
The main problem that led to this lack of maintenace and to the abandonment of many green spaces, started in August 2013 when a Court agreed that this sort of basic work was outside the remit of Fagar, the council-owned services company.
Due to a lack of civic funds, the grass grew and the flowerbeds remained untended but mayor Bacalhau says those days are all in the past and with 40% of council debt now paid off, the municipality can allocate funds to sort out its garden maintenance problem.
The council also is to spend nearly €800,000 on extensive roadworks at the city's main access points with €500,000 going on improvements to the busy EN125 at the western end of town by the Forum Algarve shopping centre.
“The tarmac is decades old, worn out and needs to be replaced,” mayor Rogério Bacalhau patiently explained, adding that the roadside also will be made safer for pedestrians and cyclists. A tender for this work, estimated to take four months, has been launched, and the council hopes to have everything done before next summer.
Bacalhau said that “traffic constraints” will have to be imposed while the contractors carry out the work but this would not involve cutting off the road completely.
At the eastern side of town, between the hospital and the roundabout, a spend of €280,000 has been agreed to improve another of Faro's less attractive areas.
There also are plans to redevelop Faro's market square (Francisco Sá Carneiro) and its surrounding area of 3.5 hectares.
All this good civic news perhaps was aimed at hiding the bad news - the development of the Campinha de Faro area for housing has been resurrected.
This project has been kicking around for decades and last was discusssed in any detail in 2011 when the plan to buiild on 133 hectares of agricultural land, based on a 79% projected growth in Faro's population, was rejected.
Property developers, ignoring urban areas within Faro itself, have long had their eyes on turning the productive agricultural fields to the rural east of Faro, at Vale da Amoreira, Penha and Chelote, into several huge housing developments.
The council is all for it, and extolls, "with the development of this plan, it is intended essentially to promote a sustainable occupation of Campina de Faro, as well as promote the restructuring and urban renewal."
This sort of Town Hall guff, using the word 'sustainable' whenever possible, again should be knocked back by the CDCR-Algarve which easily can see through statements such as "...is necessary given the demographic trends, economic and social development, and the indispensability of urban renewal."
While the nation's population shrinks and Faro's urban zone has hectares of available building land, developers want to turn productive agricultural fields into housing estates for no other reason than the huge profits to be made when such prime land is reclassified.
Another council plan is to develop a municipal business park and somehow get those companies situated along the EN125 towards the airport to move there. The business park idea also could involve more green fields being concreted over for little good reason - it is not in the council's remit to operate business parks and it is just this sort of commecial activity that led so many councils into severe debt in past years.
The last two projects at least will have a 15 day public consultation period but judging by Faro residents' apathy over the expansion of Faro's harbour into the Ria Formosa natural park, the council may get its way, CCDR-Algarve willing.
