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Parliamentary Group

DRAFT RESOLUTION N. º79/XI/1.

IT RECOMMENDS THE GOVERNMENT NOT TO ALLOW THE INSTALLATION OF A

NEW ELECTRIC SUBSTATION IN THE FOREST PARK OF

MONSANTO

The Monsanto Forest Park is one of the most important green areas in the

concelho and the Metropolitan Area of Lisbon, performing ecological functions,

landscapes and recreation and fundamental leisure for the quality of the urban environment and the

life of populations.

The recognition of its importance and the need to ensure its

preservation and enhancement made the political powers subject to the Regime

Forest Total, already since the year 1938, giving you the status of non aedificandi .

Also the Municipal Director Plan (PDM) of Lisbon classifies the Park and the zones

limitrofes such as "Green Areas of protection", not allowing for there to be erect and

urban intervention.

However, over the years, the Park was being subjected to diverse interventions

who have contributed to the patchwork in discontinuous spaces and also reduce their

perimeter. Today, there remain several threats that strike against the ecological balance and

usufruct of quality by the populations of the Park. Being this one area sorted for

protection, these interventions have relied on the complicity of various Governments

through the invocation of an abstract public interest to create exceptions to the law,

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allowing the advancement of works, equipment or ancillary accesses whose public interest is

extremely questionable and the existence of very plausible location alternatives.

One of the most recent projected works that threaten the Park is the implantation

of a new electric power substation of 220/60 kV, in an area of 5305 m2 inside

of the perimeter of the Monsanto Forest Park, inserted into land belonging to the

Municipal Chamber of Lisbon (CML).

Once the project conflicts with the Regulation of the Master Plan

Municipal of Lisbon, decided the previous Government, through the Resolution of the Council of

Ministers No. 51/2009 of June 17 to carry out the partial suspension of the same by a

period of two years, extended by one more, with a view to changing the classification of this area

to then allow the construction of this new Substation.

Also the Ministry of Economy and Innovation, declared, through the Dispatch No

18433/2009, of June 29, 2009, the " public utility of the transfer of the domain

municipal for the State and consequent allocation to the public purpose of construction and

exploration of the Zambujal Substation and accesses ... ", thus authorizing the possession

administrative of land for the start-up of the works in question.

In August 2009, the protocol between CML and the Energy Network is celebrated

Nationals-REN for the occupation of land, acting through Proposition 54/2010,

passed on February 12, the "friendly expropriation" in favour of REN of them.

At the moment, it is taking place at the National Forest Authority under

tutelage from the Ministry of Agriculture, Rural Development and Fisheries, a process

on the misallocation of the Total Forest Scheme of 6272m2 for the installation of this

Substation, being waiting to appear mandatory from CCDR-LVT, which will only be

performed after the completion of the PDM change procedure.

The Bloc of the Left considers it inadmissible that the Government, by way of several

Ministries, viabilize the installation of a new electric Substation in the Forest Park

Monsanto, resorting to the partial suspension figures of the PDM, utility statement

public of the project and misallocation of the total forest regime to counteract the

legal instruments in force that aim to protect the environment, order the territory and

promote the quality of life of populations.

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Even more incomprehensible is this taking of positions when it has not been realized

any Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) of the project, as set out in paragraph 3,

(b) of Annex II, of the Decree-Law No 69/2000 of May 3, as amended by the Decree-Law

no. 197/2005, of November 8. AIA would be instrumental in assessing the impacts

about the environment, landscape and conditions of enjoyment of the Park provoked by this new

installation, such as to study alternative locations with minor impactes. Refer to

that the " location of the new substation has been chosen " , only, " on the basis of the studies

technicians and environmental carried out by the REN-National Electrical Network, S.A. which indicated the

location in the San Francisco Xavier's freguesia as the most suitable ", explains the

Ministry of the Environment to Question No. 539 /XI/1 of the Left Bloc. The choice of the

better location to install Substation should therefore derive from the realization of the

procedure of AIA.

Allow the installation of this Substation in the Monsanto Forest Park, still

more without studies that correctly substantiate this option of location before

other possible alternatives, as well as their environmental and social impacts, means

a blind yielding to the interests of REN at the expense of preservation and valorisation

of the environmental and social functions of the Park, values these that should be

unquestionable and untouchable, as indeed lay out the legal instruments that

currently protect it from construction and urban intervention. How correctly

warned the ombudsman regarding the deployment of this project in the Park, it is

need to take into account " the cumulative effect of several successively urban planning

undertaken in an area that is supposed to keep unscathed ".

The Bloc that Left considers fundamental to proceed to the study of

alternative locations for the installation of this Substation, so as to be respected the

provisions of the Total Forest Regime, the classification of this area in PDM headquarters and the non-if

carry out yet another amputation of 5,305 m2 on the perimeter of the Forest Park of

Monsanto, the green lung of the city of Lisbon and a key ecological area in

regional terms and of an enormous importance for the enjoyment of populations. From another

mode, piece the piece, the Park is going to be patchered and reduced in its limits, with the

complicity of the Government that gives its endorsal to the most varied interventions in this area in

disrespect for the legal instruments that currently protect it to comply with the

its environmental and social functions.

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Thus, under the applicable constitutional and regimental provisions, the

Parliamentary Group of the Left Bloc proposes to the Assembly of the Republic that

recommend to the Government that:

1) Revogue the Resolution of the Council of Ministers No. 51/2009 of June 17, which decides to

partial suspension of the Municipal Director Plan of Lisbon with the aim of changing the

classification of "Green Areas of protection" of land belonging to the Park

Forest of Monsanto for the installation of the Zambujal Substation and accesses;

2) Revogue the Despacho No 18433/2009 of June 29, of the Ministry of Economy and

Innovation, which decides the public utility of the transfer of the municipal domain to the

State, and consequent allocation to the public purpose of the construction and operation of the

Zambujal substation and accouterments, from land belonging to the Forest Park of

Monsanto;

3) Do not allow the disallocation of 6272 m2 of land from the Monsanto Forest Park

subject to that of the Total Forest Regime for the installation of the Zambujal Substation and

accesses;

4) Promoting the Environmental Impact Assessment procedure of this project to be

study and analyze alternative locations, not allowing the same to install

at the Monsanto Forest Park.

Assembly of the Republic, March 12, 2010

The Deputies and Deputies of the Left Bloc,