STRATEGIC TERRITORIAL AGENDAS FOR SMALL AND MIDDLE SIZED TOWNS & URBAN SYSTEMS

The STATUS Project:

M. Urb. Sabina DIMITRIU, URBASOFIASTATUS Project Content Management

Presentation

• Context and priorities of the future South East Europe areas

• Where STATUS fits

• STATUS methodology and results

• Instruments for cooperation, diffusion, replication

• Conclusions and future perspectives

A(nother) look at the South East Europe

• European Union experience still not matured (especially in Transition Countries);

• Mostly comprising of centralized states: delegation and devolution don’t come easy;

• High political impact on planning, leading to lack of continuity and incoherent development;

• Latent and untapped potential of participation in developing planning policies;

Priorities at the turn of the programming period:

• Focusing available cohesion policy resources on performance-yielding interventions through cooperation;

• Developing cities and regions through integration of topics, urban-rural areas, stakeholder groups and funding;

• Avoiding dispersion and low return of investment;

• Creating ownership, greater transparency and buy-in.

…this is essentially where the STATUS Project comes in.

STATUS

BOOK

INCEPTION PHASE

Stakeholder identification

Operational analysis

Policy analysis

Networking + State of the Art

CLEAR FRAMEWORK OF AVAILABLE DATA, CURRENT PLANNING TOOLS AND POOL OF LOCAL ACTORS

URBAN PROGRA-MMING

URBAN CENTERS

Planning process results:

Participative planning workshops:

1) Urban Problems2) Possible solutions3) Design of strategic agenda

SEE WEB

PLATFORMINTEGRATED ST/UA; POSTER PLANS, PRIORITY PROJECTS POTENTIAL FUNDING & PPP

Urban Centers (4 UC) are set up

Stakeholder groups operationalize Urban Task Forces (UTF)

SUSTAINABILITY AND TOOLS FOR IMPLEMENTATION

Achievements:

METHODOLOGY

STATUSis first and foremost an experience generating project.

10 area-based Operational Analyses

10 plan and policy framework reports and 1 comparative study

10 Urban Task Forces

30 co-design workshops

10 Integrated Strategic Agendas

4 Urban Centers

1 Online platform with repository, Geoblogs, Territorial Atlas

1 Scientific Book

RESULTS

RESULTS

RESULTS

BUILDSEE Final Conference, 20 November 2014, Bucharest, Romania

Tools Resources

SEE CITY PLATFORM

In progress: The SEE City Platform

• Our EU-level spin-off deliverable and the first coordinated platform of its kind in the South East Europe;

• Compendium of all STATUS outputs and a toolkit for small and middle-sized cities;

• Will deliver necessary tools for creating and implementing ST/UA;

• Multi-level integrator (online Urban Center)

http://www.seecityplatform.net/

STATUS Final Conference, 28 October 2014, Alba Iulia, Romania

The Territorial Atlas

Free, open-source online tool assisting planners, administrators and investors to assess the state of the art of plans and policies as well as development or investment plans and opportunities.

http://status.graphitech-projects.com/final

The Geoblogs

Open-source interactive interface tools for direct participation. Can be used as comment and consultation platforms for newly developed proposals as well.

Aims and effects:

1. Enhanced participation: direct interface with the decision makers;

2. Greater transparency and buy-in at local level;

3. Better youth engagement;

4. Real-time response for new plans and policies;

5. More sustainable solutions, through innovative crowdsourcing.

Sharing some of our experiences: • Having a good methodology and meeting in the middle yielded

results: bridging top-down with bottom up set a base for future coherent territorial development in partners

• There is a real need for local participatory planning tools in the SEE, although that need may take time to become self-aware: longer projects may work even better

• It wasn’t always easy: 1 Lead partner change, 3 Partner changes, late start, under-expenditure, 3 minor and 1 large budget shift, long and complex paperwork and processes

• Good results require good expertise, especially in SEE : local administrations need more direct support both during and after Urban Development projects. A great methodology is not sufficient.

• Good timing is also a factor: STATUS cities and regions are now prepared with ready-to-be-funded project portfolios for 2014-2020

Conclusions and perspectives1. STATUS ending just represents a good start: It is in the hands of the

cities and regions how they will use the results and knowledge generated from here on.

2. EU Level: 330 million EUR earmarked for urban innovative actions to meet the challenges of sustainable urban development in 2014-2020. STATUS Agendas can play the role of integrators for these initiatives

3. STATUS toolkit can be a delivery mechanism for co-designed, community endorsed solutions and can help bring much-needed larger scale projects to the top of investment lists (see Romania’s POR approach to integrated urban development)

4. The tools created (Geoblogs, Territorial Atlas, UTFs, etc) are easily replicable and can help cities to better use EU funds, to work together with their citizens and to develop in a coherent, integrated, sustainable manner.

Sabina DIMITRIU | Town and Regional Planner URBASOFIA | General Manager of EU Projects sabina.dimitriu@urbasofia.eu| www.urbasofia.eu

THANK YOU!