Many of Olhão’s increasingly active citizens again were out in force on Tuesday evening to attend a public meeting arranged by the council with a chance to quiz the Lisbon-based architects from Baixa Atelier on the new plans to modernise the city's Historic Zone.

Mayor António Pina welcomed an audience of around 150 people, a mixture of Portuguese and foreigners with nationals in the vast majority, and explained that the public consultation period for the plans under discussion would end later this week on the 28th of November and the council then would decide what to do next in the light of the many comments received to date.

A new international petition - 'No to the plans destroying the character of the historic centre of Olhão in Portugal' has been set up to oppose the council's plans to modernise the Historic Zone of Olhão and keeps the pressure on a town hall now under seige from all sides.

Mayor Pina has reacted badly to recent criticism in the local press that serves the Portuguese and English speaking community, as well as to a highly damaging public meeting last Friday that saw the great and the good firmly in opposition over the 'aberration' planned by Pina's cabal.

Olhão locals are to have another chance to air their views about the proposed ‘abhorrent’ plans for the city's Historic Zone. A public meeting has been arranged with the architects Baixa Atelier who, after five years of work, are as far away from reaching a consensus as when they started.
 
The Detail Plan for the Historical Zone, which is under public discussion until the 28th of November, will be presented next Tuesday, November 22nd, at 18:00, in the Municipal Library of Olhão.

Friday night’s public meeting to hear the professional opinions of architects, a professor of art history and the leader of a non-for-profit association of the proposed modernisation of Olhão’s Historic Centre was packed.

The Recreativa Progresso hall holds 200 people and there were few seats empty as the local majority mixed with foreign residents, the ‘adopted children of Olhão’,  to hear the new municipal plan torn apart from every angle.

Olhão’s Left Bloc, ever-attuned to the zeitgeist of popular opinion, has joined in the furore over the council’s plans to modernise the city’s historic centre.

The Detail Plans for the historic zone are undergoing a period of public discussion and the volume has been increasing as the council has not made copies of the plans easily available to the public and many of those that have looked over the project online are aghast at the scale and brutality of the proposed work.

A public meeting has been arranged at which the council's plans for Olhão's historic zone will be explained by local (non-council) experts and will be open for discussion with the public.

All are invited for 6pm Friday 11th November to the ‘Sociedade Recreativa Progresso Olhanense,’ 69 Avenida da República, between Olhão's Post Office and its Court building.

Albufeira council has been keen to discuss its version of the new municipal plan with its residents at a meeting held in the Paços do Concelho Building. This was the first of many such meeting to be held across the council area to involve locals in Albufeira’s future.

The current municipal plan (PDM) has been in force since 1995 and, because it is considered out of sync with current needs, the council hired an external team that is developing work that will lead to the drafting of a new plan.

The period for public discussion and individual comment about Olhão council’s detailed plan for the historic city centre started on October 28th and will run for a month.

The Historic Zone Detailed Plan is available on the council’s website and at the town hall during office hours (09.00 to 16.30 Monday to Friday.)