Newsletter N 4. for integrated, sustainable publicspace planning and management.

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1 Newsletter N 4 February 2014 editorial 1 st round of workshops.copenhagen ANd DRESDEN VISIT PESCARA On November 22 nd and 23 rd, the City of Pescara welcomed delegations from two cities, Copenhagen and Dresden, to lead the USER Project s first cities workshop. For both the host city and the guest cities, the meeting was an opportunity to share knowledge and learn together, starting a very interesting and stimulating discussion on public spaces issues. During the two working days, participants from the guest cities visited the Fontanelle-Sambuceto area, where the City of Pescara is implementing an urban regeneration project; they also met and spoke to different types of «users» and participated in a plenary meeting with stakeholders and LSG members, where they had the opportunity to present the activities they are carrying out in their cities as part of the USER project. All these activities allowed partner cities to start a very fruitful methodological and thematic discussion on the importance of Local Action Plans as policy instruments to address urban issues, as well as on the strategy to adopt to achieve a successful public space in their pilot sites. Collecting partner cities ideas, concerns and input for improving public spaces, and discussing models, proposals and projects that could be developed has been a way to exchange experiences that can help us to be «leading actors» in Europe. In practice, the workshop successfully brought together three cities from different countries : this transnational exchange is a tremendous opportunity for our City, which will draw on international best practices and experience to achieve its overall goal of developing new solutions for integrated, sustainable publicspace planning and management. To conclude, we believe that, even if Pescara, Copenhagen and Dresden are quite different cases, all the exciting and interesting themes that emerged from the discussion will be useful for all of us - not only for our local development and LSG activities, but also for the entire partnership to which we would like to pass on the knowledge and new ideas acquired throughout the project lifetime. Cinzia LIBERATORE Pescara ULSG coordinator 01

2 What's new in USER? Autumn 2013 marked a new stage in the USER project as the workshops got under way. The workshops are European meetings in a smaller format working on a peer-review principle. The cities meet in three parallel subgroups made up of cities working on similar types of public spaces. There will be three workshop sessions, in October/November 2013, April 2014 and November Every city will host a workshop. The workshops are an opportunity for the cities to get to know the other cities' sites, share best practices and work together on drawing up the host city's local action plan. The rationale behind the workshops is that the guest cities provide «constructive criticism». Their fresh approach to the host city's site and project can inspire the host to expand certain activities, reconsider others and launch new ones. For this first series of workshops, the three host cities were : Lublin (Poland) Cracow (Poland) Pescara (Italy). Their sites are described in the following section. Drawing contest "let's draw Azory", organized by Krakow LSG By way of initial appraisal of these workshops, we could make the following points : Being able to visit the site at length is very useful for helping the cities understand their partners' problems, but there is not enough time to get a detailed understanding of the site's socio-urban role and the partnership established in the LSG The workshops have proved to be a real opportunity for the cities to discuss specific cases and practices, and learn from each other, more than in the European knowledge-building seminars Prior to the workshops, each subgroup of cities chose a central theme for their workshop, to focus the discussion and examine one particular topic in greater detail. The organisational arrangements in the three host cities were more or less the same : Day 1 : visit the site extensively + discuss the visit from the angle of the workshop's theme Day 2 : discuss the Local Support Groups' (LSG) activities and the steps towards building the city's local action plan, review the workshop and make preparations for the next one. The workshops are an excellent way for the host city to rally its LSG and bring home the USER Project's European dimension 02

3 Lessons learned from the USER network The peer-review process The workshops gave rise to very free, wide-ranging discussions among the cities, which it would be difficult to summarise here. However the workshops proved beneficial in a number of ways. Firstly, the peer-review process in itself is useful for an experience-sharing network such as USER in that it compares different perspectives on a site. Even after a brief presentation of the site, the guest cities can contribute their own view of the problems encountered, the solutions provided and the LSGs' work. This is where a European network can be very valuable : it gives a city the benefit of other European professionals' expertise, which can lead it to ask itself new questions and reconsider certain practices. Lublin The guest cities can give advice : «We would recommend that the city consider the social aspect and neighbourhood management as just as important as possible urban development measures, and start thinking about how the inhabitants of the redeveloped spaces will - or will not - feel at home there.» Grenoble-Alpes Métropole, in Cracow «Lublin should find ways to use the derelict buildings around Rybny Square, just as we did in Riga. It's very important to bring heritage buildings back to life because, if there's no life in the buildings around a square, the square itself will never be a living public space» Riga, in Lublin «There are very few cultural activities held on Rybny Square because there are very few participants. However, based on our experience in Malaga, we firmly believe that it is important to schedule cultural activities very regularly in the district. They could be either related to local events, such as cultural nights, or specific to a given public space. This helps keep the public space in constant use, enhance the identity of the space and develop users' sense of community» Malaga, in Lublin Lublin - Rybny square 03

4 The host cities are not the only ones to benefit from a fresh perspective, though. The guest cities all left the workshops with fresh questions and fresh ideas about improving their pilot sites. «We were surprised to see that very simple measures can significantly change the way a public space is used. For example, opening the doors at the back of the university, which open onto Jan Kochanowski Square, for one day attracted throngs of students onto the square. For one day, this "public space for no-one" was transformed into a "public space for everyone» Riga, in Lublin «During the workshop, we ran a participatory workshop with architecture students. It showed us that residents and users can have very lively, positive discussions with the academic community. It might be important for us to get students, residents and all of the other stakeholders to share their ideas, questions and viewpoints for each pilot site» Lisbon, in Cracow Lublin - Kochanowski square Lastly, the workshops provide an opportunity for the cities to work together on finding solutions to the problems they are each encountering on their pilot sites. These problems might be thematic (how to get users more involved, how to bring a square back to life...) or practical (how to lead a Local Support Group, for example). «When it comes to organising and running appropriate working groups to deal with the question of underprivileged districts, Pescara and Dresden can probably learn a lot from Copenhagen» Dresden, in Pescara «In Pescara, we talked about how to involve all of the stakeholders, and whether it was even a good idea. Dresden raised a very interesting question: what do you do if a key project stakeholder does not want to get involved? We had to deal with a situation like that, and took us numerous bilateral meetings to convince the stakeholder to join our Local Support Group» Copenhagen, in Pescara At the end of the workshops, the six guest cities drafted a brief report on everything that struck them as unusual or noteworthy, which they gave to the host city. The report is designed to help them pinpoint the main lessons learnt from the workshops. More importantly, though, it should help the host city, since the guest cities set down their advice and recommendations, their point of view on the LSG's activities, etc. The host city can then use all of this input to improve its local action plan. The quotations below are taken from these reports. 04

5 Close-up on the host cities' sites Lublin Lublin chose to work on two squares Rybny Square Rybny Square is quite centrally located and close to the main roads and transport lines. It is large, contains trees and has huge potential; On the other hand, the life is seeping out of it. The surrounding buildings are being deserted, the restaurants are closing down and it gives off the image of a very mineral square with no precise purpose. The City of Lublin is working on revitalising the square by making the public space more peoplefriendly and better suited to the city's uses. Jan Kochanowski Square This second site is a square situated behind Lublin's university. It is mainly used by people on their way to the church on the edge of the square, or by people waiting for their children to come out of school. It is not seen as a public leisure area that people in the district might go to on purpose. The university students don't use it because there is no opening between the establishment and the square. The City of Lublin has tested a number of simple measures, which have shown that it is possible to bring life back to the square and make it a pleasant public space at very little expense. This is what the local action plan has set out to accomplish on this site. Cracow Azory district The Azory district is one of the largest post-wwii residential districts in Cracow. It is close to the city centre and houses around 15,000 people. The district is facing sizeable problems with its public spaces because they are largely unplanned, lack a clear purpose and are difficult to reach. These public spaces are undeveloped and land title is not clear. They have great potential (extensive surface area, green spaces, local residents make use of them), but it is not used. The space is occupied by cars, is not designed for any particular usage, and has problems with antisocial behaviour and a lack of safety. The City of Cracow's action plan is mainly aimed at upgrading these public spaces, making them attractive for local residents and the rest of the city, and reducing management costs. Pescara Fontanelle-Sambuceto The Fontanelle-Sambuceto area extends over 100 hectares. It is home to a wide variety of activities (residential, transport infrastructure, industry, brownfield sites), which are not organised in any coherent manner. Fontanelle-Sambuceto is seen by its inhabitants as one of the least developed parts of the city. The Fontanelle district is starting to have problems with safety, on top of which there are problems caused by the proximity of residential and industrial zones. The zone also lacks green spaces and leisure areas. A major urban regeneration programme is therefore being conducted in the district. The USER local action plan is focused on one aspect of this urban regeneration: creating public spaces designed for leisure activities in a green corridor in the centre of the zone. This "Green Backbone" project raises questions to do with designing new public spaces with high environmental and social quality in a participatory approach. 05

6 Events Lisbon seminar The USER network will meet again on February 2014 for the last thematic seminar (the following seminars will be devoted to knowledge building). The theme will be : «better maintained, better managed public spaces» This is a key issue in our work on creating public spaces with efficient uses. Public space maintenance is fundamental because it gives users everyday quality of life. It influences the way public spaces are used: clean, well-kept public spaces will be used more, and better, than dirty, rundown spaces. This question is also very important for municipalities, because it raises the problems of the cost of managing public spaces. The aim is not to design beautiful public spaces that will very soon be run down because they cost too much to maintain. Nor should we overlook little problems that are inexpensive to fix and which might open the door to deterioration in the district's image In short, the Lisbon seminar is sure to be a platform for very productive discussions among the USER project cities! Lisbon pilot site Work begins on drawing up the local action plans In early 2014, the cities will start drawing up their local action plans. After the phase of diagnosis and analysis that most of them conducted in 2013, the Local Support Groups will now draw up a strategy, and then define measures to resolve the conflicting uses and solve the problems observed on their pilot sites. Work on building the local action plans will continue in phases through to September It is an important task for the LSGs, and will be carefully monitored by the lead expert and the USER Project lead partner. 06

7 Contacts Grenoble-Alpes Métropole (Lead Partner) : Claire PREDAL, claire.predal@lametro.fr Fernando BARREIRO (Lead Expert), fbarreiro@teonetwork.com Copenhagen : Sia BOESEN, A32Z@tmf.kk.dk Dresden : Bruno BULS bbuls@dresden.de Krakow : Natalia BERNIAT Natalia.Biernat@um.krakow.pl Lisbon : Miguel BRITO miguel.brito@cm-lisboa.pt Lublin : Monika KLOS mklos@lublin.eu Malaga : Begona OLIVA programaseuropeos3@malaga.eu Pescara : Cinzia LIBERATORE urbactoffice@comune.pescara.it Riga : Nika KOTOVIKA Nika.Kotovica@riga.lv DIR : Grenoble-alpes métropole - graphic design : - february 2014