Staatsbosbeheer & the Bow Tie: Breathing space for the Randstad North Wing

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1 Staatsbosbeheer & the Bow Tie: Breathing space for the Randstad North Wing Fokke Fennema, strategic area development officer Nick de Snoo, programme leader North Wing programme Suus Boerma, area development officer/ project SAUL 17 April 2008 Staatsbosbeheer, the t Dutch National Forest Service Managing 246,000 hectares of nature reserves in the Netherlands, among those National Parks Developing nature and recreation areas also close to the cities For more information, please visit Route 1

2 Randstad Holland The Randstad Holland (Rim City, i.e. a city at the rim of a circle, with empty space in the centre) is a conurbation in the Netherlands. It consists of the four largest Dutch cities (Amsterdam, Rotterdam, The Hague and Utrecht), and the surrounding areas. With its 7.5 million inhabitants, almost half of the population of the Netherlands, it is one of the largest conurbations in Europe. Other major cities are Almere, Delft Haarlem and Leiden and includes the Schiphol Airport area as well. The cities of the Randstad more or less form a crescent or chain. This shape has given the Randstad its name ( rand means rim or edge and stad means city or town). The area that is enclosed by the larger cities is called the Green Heart (Groene Hart). The Randstad is divided in two parts: North Wing and South Wing. North Wing encloses Amsterdam, Almere and the Schiphol Airport area. South Wing encloses Rotterdam and The Hague, Delft and Leiden. Randstad North Wing and Bow TieT Major discussions take place about infrastructure and housing developments in the Noth Wing, mainly between the cities of Amsterdam and Almere. However, there is also a notion that green and blue are of great importance for good living conditions for employees and good settling conditions for enterprises. Recently, at the North Wing Conference, an agreement was made about green and blue and the concept of the Bow Tie was adopted. This concept was developed by several nature and environmental organisations, among those Staatsbosbeheer. The Bow Tie consists of investments of different kinds in green and blue, in order to maintain and develop good living conditions and good settling conditions for the North Wing. Several projects were identified, for example projects dealing with cultural history/ landscape, developing recreational areas near the IJmeer. Projets differ in size and scale. There are projects to improve the quality of the Amsterdam and Almere green wedges, but also a project to develop a robust green and blue structure for the entire North Wing, the Bow Tie itself. 2

3 Staatsbosbeheer and the Bow Tie Staatsbosbeheer is involved in several of the Bow Tie projects in the Amsterdam region: Diemer Wedge: improving accessibility, sustainability and appreciation in hearts and minds of politicians, civil servants and local people and entrepreneurs; Diemer Forest: extension and re-design of an urban, swamp-like forest; Bloemendaler Polder: developing recreational area for the new housing area; Nature Boulevard: improving accessibility and developing recreational facilities along the IJmeer, also developing better possibilities for moving animals (part of the National wet ecological framework); Future IJmeer-Markermeer: improving water and nature quality, developing a European wetland. 3

4 Intermezzo Amstel Wedge & the SAUL project The Amstel Wedge, along the River Amstel, is a well-loved green and recreational area for city dwellers. Staatsbosbeheer has almost no areas in the Amstel Wedge, but we were involved in the SAUL project Staatsbosbeheer co-ordinated the Dutch SAUL projects (for the city of Amsterdam and the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Nature Quality), which were both located in the Amsterdam region. At the moment, we are a partner organisation in SAUL 2 EXT, for the Arnhem-Nijmegen region. Early debates around the future of Amsterdam s Amstel Wedge based ideas for future strategy primarily on its agricultural traditions and rural image. But SAUL proposed that, from an external perspective, the northern part of the Wedge is essentially an urban landscape. The city is visibly present in and around the area, yet it is a green, open and relatively quiet space. They questioned whether the existing plans could represent a sustainable future and helped to draw up a more suitable plan for the Wedge, which recognised that citizens of the city also have an important part to play. Though well-loved, the area needed improvement of accessibility, especially possibilities to cross the river and walking and canoeing routes through the fields. The Amstel Wedge is an agricultural area, and farmers had to deal with transformation: they could no longer make a living just by producing milk. They had to also take the city 4

5 dwellers demands into. So they had to start producing children s parties, pancakes, child care, canoe hire and selling regional products. Another difficulty in the area was the governmental structure. The area was most important to Amsterdam people, but the city had no ownership. Most of the area was owned by other towns. The Amsterdam government, who acknowledged the value of the wedge for the Amsterdam people, was seen as the big bad wolf by the smaller villages. They felt Amsterdam told them what to do. SAUL dealt with these issues with great success. Accessibility was improved, farmers were helped in developing transformation strategies, and we helped the smaller towns to feel proud of their value for the city of Amsterdam and helped Amsterdam to behave more humble towards these smaller towns. For more information, please visit or s.boerma@staatsbosbeheer.nl 5

6 ANALYSE Diemer Wedge The SAUL project also inspired Staatsbosbeheer to look at the Diemer Wedge. This urban landscape, seen as the ugly duckling of all Amsterdam wedges, has since many years been an area in which mainly infrastructure was developed. And the more infrastructure was developed, the more it was seen as a lost area, by politicians, civil servants as well as local people. A reason to develop even more infrastructure. And not only infrastructure, all actions in this area were more or less ad hoc. There was no policy whatsoever. Staatsbosbeheer sees this as a threat: if people continue to look at the wedge like they always did, in 20 years from now, there will be no longer a wedge, but only infrastructure and housing and business areas. And green wedges are of great importance, especially in a booming region like the North Wing. Infrastructurele doorsnijdingen Spoor A10 Knp Diemen Metro Hoo gsp ann ings tra jecte A1 n Gaasperdammerweg Spoor A9 6

7 But there s not only threats, there are also lots of opportunities. This area could be important to people as a green and recreational area, though different from the other Amsterdam wedges. There s not only infrastructure, but also old water ways to be seen. Together with the infrastructure, they form recreational barriers for people. But these barriers also helped develop the typical Diemer Wedge scenery. With every new transportation line, new rooms were born. Thus, the Diemer Wedge is a constellation of many rooms with different atmospheres divided by many routes. Some rooms consist of wild natural areas, such as the Diemer Pentagram, while others consist of meadowland, like the extension area for the Diemer Forest. Staatsbosbeheer feels that all these rooms could be developed together, and the wedge s unique character could turn into a league of its own. MODEL 02 Model Diemerkamers It is not only important to develop some kind of shared image and policy for the Diemer Wedge, it is even more important that people start thinking different about this area. Politicians as well as civil servants, local people and entrepreneurs should embrace this unique area,keep it in their hearts and minds. Involvement of local people is the best protection for urban landscapes. By the end of 2007, the Staatsbosbeheer ideas for the Diemer Wedge were adopted by the North Wing Conference. In 2008, a plan for creating a shared image of the wegde will be developed by the aldermen of the towns of Diemen and Amsterdam. Staatsbosbeheer involvement will be mainly from the maintenance perspective and within the projects Diemer Forest, Bloemendalerpolder and Nature Boulevard. 7

8 Diemer Forest In the Diemer Forest, an urban forest between high ways and rail tracks, we work on re-designing the existing forest and extending it. This project is led by the city of Amsterdam. Staatsbosbeheer and the borough of Amsterdam Zuid-Oost and the village of Diemen are involved in the project. Staatsbosbeheer owns the forest and takes care of maintenance. Recreational research proved that people valued the quietness and the natural, swamp-like character of the forest. However, they missed facilities like play zones for children, better routes for walking and horse-riding and a café. By re-desiging the area and meeting the demands of the local people, we feel that more people, especially migrant communities from the borough of Zuid-Oost and families with children, could be able to enjoy this area. In 2008, we start the actual work. The new forest will be delivered by

9 Bloemendaler Polder This area is still an open agricultural landscape. It needs re-development for a lot of claims have to be integrated. Housing (ca. 2,500 houses), a new route of the A1 freeway with 2*6 lanes, new nature with a strong ecological connection between the IJmeer in the North and the Vechtlakes in the South, recreation areas with footh and bike paths (in total more than 300 hectares) and new roads from the towns Muiden and Weesp to the new freeway. Also the cultural heritage (old view lines and defense structures like the Amsterdam Defence Line and the New Dutch Water Defense Line) have to be protected. A real challenge for developing a new urban landscape. Staatsbosbeheer, as the future manager of the recreation and nature sites in the Bloemendaler Polder, has played an active role in the process redeveloping this area. We shared our knowledge of nature and recreation. We connected this plan to developments in the neighbourhood like the Nature Boulevard and the Diemer Forest. We participated in design workshops for the plans, creating the optimal solutions for the bottlenecks. Although the project is a public private partnership, at the start problems raised due to lack of public public partnership. In the near future the challenge will be financing the development of the recreation and nature area by the profits of the exploitation of building the housing area. 9

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11 Nature Boulevard Governmental and non-governmental organisations, among them Staatsbosbeheer, agreed on improving the quality of the landscape, recreational facilities and ecological systems in the area between Amsterdam and the Green Heart. There was a basic understanding that if new highways were to be developed between Amsterdam and Almere, also green and blue investments were necessary. The parties, led by the Province of Noth Holland, developed a programme of 60 projects to work on these issues. One of the projects led by Staatsbosbeheer is the Nature Boulevard, the area along the IJmeer between Amsterdam and the bridge to Almere. 11

12 Aims of this project are: Improving accessibility: biking and walking routes without barriers, possibility of short walks from the towns, improving connections to other green areas, for example the Diemer Forest. More possibilities for experiencing the water and coastal zone and the surrounding agricultural landscape: recreational facilities like cafés and bird watching stations, canoeing routes. Some areas busy, some quiet. Creating enough resting and feeding areas for protected birds. Key to this project is balancing recreational and ecological purposes. In 2007 Staatsbosbeheer produced an outline for further development in which 25 sub-projects were identified. Aim is to start investments in

13 Future IJmeer-Markermeer The area of the IJmeer-Markermeer is of great natural and recreational importance to the urbanised North Wing. Staatsbosbeheer participates in a project to deal with ecological, hydrological and recreational difficulties. These difficulties have to be tackled. in combination with the ongoing urban development of Almere (+ 60,000 houses). The water is turbid by mud, therefore, fish and birds have difficulty feeding. Furthermore, there s the question of climate proof maintenance of dikes and water. 13