StadtWohnen agency visits Spain
A Chemnitz representative from the StadtWohnen agency will be in Vilafranca del Penedès until Saturday to report on their experience in the ALT/BAU Transfer Network. The city in Spain hopes that its participation in the "ALT/BAU Transfer Network" will provide solutions to the high vacancy rate and the associated social problems. A coordination centre such as the StadtWohnen Chemnitz agency can help the city to tackle these problems in a targeted manner. The city of Chemnitz, the StadtWohnen Chemnitz agency and the members of the local action group have two years of intensive work ahead of them on the subject of the activation of old buildings, which promises to bring knowledge and success in this area for everyone involved.
Background:
In 2017, the municipal project "Agentur StadtWohnen Chemnitz" was one of five projects in German cities to receive the "URBACT Good Practice" award and was thus recognised by the European funding programme URBACT for its work as a coordinating body in the management of older buildings. The "Good Practice" label enabled the city to successfully apply for the management of the "ALT/BAU" transfer network in the URBACT programme. The aim of the URBACT networks is to promote the exchange of knowledge and learning processes between cities in the European Union.
Initially, the search for six European partner cities that have similar problems to Chemnitz and are interested in adapting the Chemnitz agency was completed by summer 2018: the Romanian Black Sea city of Constanța, the Latvian capital Riga, the industrial cities of Rybnik in Poland and Seraing in Wallonia in Belgium, Turin in Italy and Vilafranca del Penedès in Spain.
An initial meeting with all partners took place in Chemnitz on 3 and 4 September 2018. The main phase of the network's activities, which will run until the end of 2020, finally began on 4 December 2018. Until then, an intensive exchange between the partner cities will take place with visits and exchanges on site. In parallel to the international exchange, a local Chemnitz action group was also founded to analyse the new findings and make them available for the management of old buildings in Chemnitz.
During the first meeting in Seraing on 28 and 29 January 2019, the participants discussed the challenges facing the city of 64,000 inhabitants due to the large number of derelict steel industry sites and the neglected residential areas of the steel workers. A four-person delegation from Chemnitz gained an impression of the problems and solutions in Seraing and reported in detail to the local action group.
Explanation:
The StadtWohnen Chemnitz agency, which is run by the Westsächsische Gesellschaft für Stadterneuerung, has been working on behalf of the city as a coordination centre for the management of old buildings since 2012. The agency's activities focus on activating owners and advising individual users and user groups with the aim of bringing long vacant and unrenovated buildings - especially those from the Wilhelminian era - back into use. Numerous buildings on the Sonnenberg and in parts of Schlosschemnitz bear witness to the successful work of the City of Chemnitz and its agency.
Further information : www.stadtwohnen-chemnitz.de