Case study: Contract of districts in Brussels

1
Case study Contract of districts in Brussels

• ENTP
• Presentation to the Mayor of Almere
• Brussels 27th June 2007

2
Some facts about Brussels

• 1 Region of 1 million inhabitants
• 19 Municipalities
• 2 linguistic Communities
• 2nd richest region in the EU per GDP
• One of the poorest region in the EU concerning
  the overall income of inhabitants
• Rate of employment around 18 and 34 for
  youngster under 25y
• Rate of immigrants 27 (more than 55 are from
  the EU)
• Long years of deprivation of some districts due
  to a lack of investment from the federal state,
  the non existence of the regional level and the
  financial speculation for the land.

3
The contract of districts - Organization

• An integrated approach in
• The issues
• Social housing
• Housing under convention
• PPP to involve owners in the regeneration of
  housing
• Creation and development of public spaces
  (infrastructure, transport, environment)
• Social regeneration (from infrastructure to
  economic regeneration)
• The territories
• City
• Districts
• Neighbourhood
• Surrounding areas

• The actors
• EU
• Federal government
• Regions
• Towns
• Associations
• Citizens

4
The contract of districts - how it works

• Partnership between the Municipality and the
  Region
• Positive discrimination 15 disctricts
  representing 1/3 of inhabitants and receiving 80
  of the citys policy funding
• 4 years programmes
• Maximum 90 of subsidies from the region and
  minimum 10 of subsidies from the Municipality
• Participatory approach there is a Commission of
  concertation in each quartiers composed by 8
  representatives of the inhabitants (elected by
  the inhabitants), 8 representatives of
  institutions, 4 delegates of NGOs businesses and
  schools and 1 representative of the local
  employment office
• Cooperation between the different level
• Municipalities, associations and inhabitants set
  up projects
• Region, EU, federal government, municipality fund
  the actions
• Interconnected priorities
• Last 5 years only 20 job created in Brussels
  were taken by people living in Brussels
• The residents are choosing to live in the suburbs
• So employment policy need to be accompanied by
  housing policy, policy on public spaces, mobility
  and education

5
The Contract of districts- Evaluation

• Conditions for success
• Political will
• Sustainability in time
• Scale of policies (degree of involvement, degree
  of cooperation, degree of integration between the
  different policies etc)
• Positive aspects
• Creation of new housings
• Improvement of public spaces
• Better social cohesion with the increase of the
  participation of inhabitants, the building of
  collective equipment and action on training and
  Professional insertion
• Negative aspects
• Lack of visibility of the results for the
  inhabitants
• Complex organization and procedures can create a
  segmentation of the initiatives
• Involvement of the inhabitants from passive
  observer to active citizen not always the case
• Complexity of the relationship between
  associations, inhabitants and administration

6
The Contract of Districts - Main conclusions

• It is a good practice of an integrated approach
  in urban regeneration
• The need for coordination is even more pregnant
  in the belgian context
• Positive and real impacts at the local level for
  the inhabitants but.....difficulties to find the
  best ways to involve them.

7

• Thanks
• Contacts
• Pascaline Gaborit Pascaline.gaborit_at_newtowns.net
  
• Alfredo Corbalan alfredo.corbalan_at_newtowns.net
• Marie-Violaine Polonowski marie.polonowski_at_newtow
  ns.net
• www.newtowns.net