Lagoa 2025: Strategic Plan for the Sustainable Development of the Municipality of Lagoa

Lagoa Municipality needed to update its previous Municipal Plan, which dated back to 1994. The process began in 2014 with a needs assessment, followed by an open and participatory approach that engaged the local population.

• Enhance security
• Enhance security perception
• Improve sustainable mobility
• Improve social inclusion

The “Lagoa 2025 – Planning and Developing Lagoa Council” proposal brings together the strategic development plan, the municipal masterplan, the urban regeneration plan, and the sustainable urban mobility plan, with the aim of making Lagoa a sustainable, inclusive, and accessible council for all.

• Municipality of Lagoa
• Citizens
• Parish councils
• Community organisations
• Local businesses
• Local political parties
• Foreign citizen representatives
• Teachers and students

To address the main factors behind inhabitants’ sense of insecurity, the municipality adopted a collaborative and participatory approach: the community discussed issues, identified problems, and worked together on solutions to improve urban security and safety in Lagoa.

Central to this process were eight public participation forums and meetings held with the Parish Councils:

• 1st Forum – 40 participants (individual citizens and representatives of associations, community organisations, and the business sector of the municipality).
• 2nd Forum – 15 participants (individual citizens and representatives of associations, community organisations, and the business sector of the municipality).
• 3rd Forum – 9 participants (citizens representing the CDU and BE parties with seats in the Lagoa Municipal Assembly).
• 4th Forum – 50 participants (municipal staff from Lagoa, both residents and non-residents, from all areas of the municipality’s work).
• 5th Forum – 10 participants (citizens representing the PSD party with seats in the Lagoa Municipal Assembly).
• 6th Forum – 21 participants (citizens representing the PS party with seats in the Lagoa Municipal Assembly).
• 7th Forum – 10 participants (citizens representing the resident foreign community in the municipality).
• 8th Forum – 30 participants (teachers and students from the Public Secondary School of the municipality).

• Practical, hands-on experience in building a participatory action plan.
• Applied experience in implementing equality guidelines developed in Portugal.

This technology was not developed specifically for the Municipal Plan, but Smart City technologies emerged as a response to the growing need to communicate faster and more efficiently with the population. Around 2016/2017 — when this type of application was not yet common — an app was developed to let residents report issues or concerns in public spaces and communicate quickly with municipal representatives.

In 2025, the Municipality of Lagoa received an innovation award for its work integrating IoT sensors into urban management, although this achievement is not directly related to its participatory security approach.

Prize award: https://www.sulinformacao.pt/en/2025/03/municipio-de-lagoa-distinguido-com-premio-inovacao/

• The participatory approach made it possible to include diverse perspectives and address the needs and preferences of citizens and parishes.
• Involving local communities helped identify concrete issues to tackle, with the aim of increasing the sense of security.
• More than 300 individual participations have been recorded during the PDM process.

• Investment in participatory decision-making, digitalisation, and innovation has proven worthwhile.
• Making adjustments and remaining flexible is important for maintaining dialogue with different local authorities and ensuring sustainability.
• The municipality has been establishing Equality Plans since 2013 (now in its 5th version), providing input to other sectors and reflecting an ongoing awareness of the gender dimension of safeguarding public spaces.

The participatory approach has been integrated into municipal action broadly, rather than focused specifically on public security, which means engaging many different sectors.

This kind of initiative generally relies on personal interest and sensitivity to the topic, rather than on a structured system or policy.

A further challenge is maintaining the engagement of participants over time (for example the 300 participants involved over the years). There is also a political limitation, since this Municipal Plan builds on a previous one and requires updates and validation from various levels. Public perception of how and why to contribute to developing such a document is another factor to manage.

The project’s results can serve as an example for other municipal services to develop their own integrated action plans through active citizen engagement.

The methodology has since been used in the development of Lagoa’s other plans (the municipality is currently working on four or five more, on different topics).