Adequate housing is a right enshrined in international human rights law. But when property speculation and other factors inflate rental and real estate prices, what can cites do to ensure adequate and affordable homes for all? Measures to de-financialise housing were among the responses explored by urban researchers, campaigners and city representatives in the online ‘Fair finance’ conference, jointly run by URBACT and Urban Innovative Actions (UIA) in November 2020.

Any local efforts to provide fair access to housing are set in a complex context of international investment, fluctuating markets, and multiple levels of policy. With this in mind, the URBACT-UIA Fair finance webinar debated the roles, responsibilities and actions of local administrations in controlling their housing markets to fight exclusion, showcasing examples from partner cities.

What is the financialisation of housing?

“Housing is a RIGHT, not a commodity”, says the United Nations Special Rapporteur for adequate housing. The trouble is, housing has become a vehicle for global wealth and investment, rather than a ‘social good’. This shift is known as the financialisation of housing. The term covers a variety of strategies used worldwide to extract value from cities’ built stock.

One key factor is the buying up of low-price homes by private equity and investment firms who then raise rents, pricing the tenants out. “Almost overnight multinational private equity and asset management firms like Blackstone have become the biggest landlords in the world, purchasing thousands and thousands of units in North America, Europe, Asia and Latin America,” announced UN housing and human rights experts Leilani Farha and Surha Deva, back in March 2019. “They have changed the global housing landscape.”

While speculation creates large profits for investors, average citizens suffer from lack of adequate housing. In Europe, 80 million people faced overburdening housing costs just before Covid-19, and the number of people sleeping rough increased by 70% over the previous 10 years, reported FEANTSA, the European Federation of National Organisations Working with the Homeless.

The Covid-19 effect

During the coronavirus pandemic, house prices and rents have continued to rise in many areas, according to data presented at the recent European Conference on Housing Policy – despite measures such as temporary rents freeze or moratoria on evictions to protect the most vulnerable.

Manuel Aalbers, expert on financialisation of housing at Leuven University, foresaw in spring 2020: “when transactions and prices drop, private equity and hedge funds will be able to buy up large housing portfolios ‘on the cheap’.”

The long-term impact of Covid-19 is expected to intensify investment trends, reinforcing the gap between those who make profits from housing and those who need it for their life. As EU Urban Agenda Housing Partnership coordinator Michaela Kauer says,“…housing is at the heart of the coronavirus crisis; we need resilient housing systems more than ever”.

City experiments in regulating local housing markets

In the complex web of global, EU, national and local factors influencing housing finance, city governments have their responsibilities and roles to play. Public measures can have adverse effects, for example by supporting so-called ‘vulture’ investors, bailing out banks and (now) homeowners, or promoting the privatisation of public housing stocks without providing housing security for the most vulnerable. For these reasons, to ensure access to housing for all, government bodies at all levels have to work together to re-orient public policies against speculative mechanisms.

Although cities alone do not hold the power either to deconstruct or control financial markets, a set of legal and political measures – including the exercise of pre-emption rights, planning decisions towards commoning rather than privatisation, and eviction protection, as well as political and civil society pressures – can help revert the hyper-commodification of housing and the detrimental effects on inhabitants.

The URBACT-UIA Fair finance conference showcased two approaches to regulating local housing markets: in the city of Mataró, near Barcelona, with the UIA project ‘Yes we rent!’; and in Riga, partner in the URBACT Alt/Bau network.

Mataró: tenant cooperatives

In Mataró (ES), despite rocketing rents and sparse affordable housing, more than 3 000 flats still stand empty. So the city’s ‘Yes we rent!’ project encourages the creation of tenant cooperatives to re-use empty properties and increase rental supply. This municipality-led model provides benefits for homeowners to renovate flats (according to energy efficiency parameters), securing rental payment and tax exemptions.

In September 2020, the first owner signed to make his empty flat available to the 'Yes, we rent!' housing scheme.

The initial aim is to mobilise 220 units in order to constitute a stock of affordable flats for the city. Hence, owners will sign a contract with this new agent in the rental market, the housing cooperative, which will transfer the right to use (or ‘cession’) the apartment to one of its members according to its allocation rules. The hope is to change mindsets among residential property owners taking part in a project that goes beyond lucrative interest, and to encourage the solidarity of tenants through the city-wide cooperative.

Riga: taxing deteriorating buildings

The city of Riga (LV) has a shrinking population, thus speculative practices are less evident than in dynamically growing cities. The city introduced a regulation to increase property tax – by up to 10-15 times – on buildings that are classified as degraded, to encourage their rehabilitation. To do so, they established the Commission for the Inspection of Degraded Buildings. The threat of tax increases has led to substantial renovation activities. A similar measure could be applied to encourage the rehabilitation of empty residential properties to boost the provision of affordable housing in cities with tighter housing markets.

These examples are just two of the many wide-ranging actions and measures local administrations can adopt to control and de-financialise their housing markets. Vienna (AT), for example, has long-standing public social housing policies, with two instruments to regulate relations with institutional investors: 1) urban development contracts; and 2) a law, passed in November 2018, requiring that all new buildings larger than 5000 m² include at least two-thirds subsidised housing, for which rents may not exceed € 5 per m2, said Michaela Kauer during the URBACT-UIA web conference.

Meanwhile, Berlin has set up a rental freeze and exercises the rights of first refusal, and other instruments to prevent the exploitation of tenants. Citizens are also active, campaigning, for example, to expropriate Deutsche Wohnen, one of the largest investors in Berlin.

No city is immune

European Commission Joint Research Centre’s Sjoerdje van Heerden warned conference participants that European capital cities are not immune to the financialisation of their housing markets. Van Heerden, who co-authored the 2020 report ‘Who owns the city?’, said: “There is a need for researchers to further understand how the capital speculation unfolds in different territories, whether through touristification, golden visa programmes or investments by large corporate investors”.

Manuel Gabarre de Sus, from the Spanish ‘Observatory Against Economical Crime’, pointed out that while the effects of financialisation become evident at the city level, the threads of speculative investments have to be searched beyond, touching European and global markets. A simple but powerful diagram shows that all levels of governments are implicated and bear responsibilities, including the EU banking system, lending to opportunistic funds such as Cerberus with a 0% interest rate.

The EU banking system contributes to the financialisation of local housing markets in the way it provides loans.

Recipe for curbing financialisation

International Union of Tenants representative Barbara Steenbergen set out a customisable recipe of instruments cities can adopt to regulate the private rental market and curb financialisation. First, she said, cities should start with the transparency of data, especially with local comparative rents to “know what your neighbour pays”. Second, when there are housing bubbles, adopt rental caps. Third, in the midst of massive speculation, rental freeze is fundamental. Fourth, cities should foster fair urban planning and putting a halt on sale of publicly owned stocks and land. And, finally, old and new legal measures should be deployed, while counting on the monetary support of the EU to build more affordable public social housing.

Pushing for adequate and affordable  housing at EU level

Concluding the Fair finance conference, MEP Kim von Sparrentak, European Parliament rapporteur on affordable housing in the EU, presented her 2019 report ‘Access to decent and affordable housing for all’.

The report, linked to the work of the EU UA on housing, was adopted by the European Parliament Committee on Employment and Social Affairs (EMPL) with an overwhelming majority on 1 December 2020. Its proposals include increasing Europe’s affordable housing stock, having an integrated strategy on housing, fighting evictions and eradicating homelessness by 2030. The European Parliament plenary scheduled for 18 January 2021 will hopefully open up a new scenario for housing policies in Europe.

More to come

Though Fair finance is the final event in the series, URBACT and UIA’s joint work on the right to housing continues. Look out for upcoming podcasts, videos and more on the new online platform on housing in 2021.

More information:

• URBACT-UIA Housing initiative, a one-year learning activity on “cities engaging in the right to housing” coordinated by Laura Colini, URBACT Programme Expert;
• How to accomplish the ‘right to housing’ – examples from Berlin and Barcelona;
• OHCR-UN Habitat factsheet ‘The Right to Adequate Housing’.

The main objective of Action Planning Networks is to bring together between 7 and 10 cities across Europe to exchange their experience in a particular thematic urban development challenge and to share their ideas about possible solutions, during a period of over 2 years. The Phase 1 (from late June 2019 to February 2020) focused on the development of baseline studies, city profiles and the production of the Application Form for Phase 2.

Following the Monitoring Committee's approval of the networks, cities are now ready to focus on the exchange and learning activities using a range of learning tools and approaches in line with the URBACT Method. Every partner city will consolidate an URBACT Local Group, which will co-design Integrated Action Plans for future implementation. The Phase 2 also presents a novelty for the projects, from now on cities are encouraged to undertake pilot actions (Small Scale Actions), to experiment with new ideas for projects gained from other network exchanges and in line with the cities’ network topic.

As a consequence of the Covid-19 pandemic, the URBACT Secretariat will follow up with a series of adapted activities to support these networks and their partners, including the delivery of trainings using online formats and a 3 months extension of the network life-cycle, meaning that projects will run until August 2022. Thus, networks will respect the following calendar:

• Activation Stage (May - December 2020): putting together an Integrated Action Plan roadmap
• Planning Actions (December 2020 - December 2021): drafting the Integrated Action Plan
• Planning Implementation (December 2021 - June 2022): finalising the Integrated Action Plan
• Integrated Action Plans Finale (June - August 2022): sharing knowledge

You can find all approved networks in the table below, the Lead Partner city is indicated is bold. To find out more about each one of the projects, check the network's webpages.
Congratulations to the 23 approved projects!

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Interested in finding more about the approved networks and what they will do? Watch the URBACT Method video and check out the Action Planning Network's infographic!

The URGE APN project

The URGE (Circular Building Cities) project, approved in the frame of URBACT III Action Planning Networks (APNs), aims to design action plans on circularity in the building sector. URGE is thus accelerating the transition to the circular economy. The network consists of large cities such as Copenhagen and Munich, medium sized cities such as Utrecht and Riga and smaller cities such as Maribor (represented by Nigrad), Kavala and Comunidade Intermunicipal do Oeste, a regional cooperation of smaller municipalities. It is led by the City of Utrecht.

In the frame of Phase I, a more thorough investigation will be made into each city’s case, to raise the needs and draw a tailored-made action plan to smoothen difficulties exploit opportunities and come up with solutions that will boost circularity in the building sector.
 

What is a circular building?

‘’A building that is developed, used and reused without unnecessary resource depletion, environmental pollution and ecosystem degradation. It is constructed in an economically responsible way and contributes to the wellbeing of people and the biosphere’’.

Circular buildings impact positively on Materials, Energy, Waste, Biodiversity, Health and Well Being, Human culture & society. Additionally, they may produce multiple forms of value.

Where is the global economy in terms of circularity standing today?

Our global economy is only 9% circular. 8.4 Giga tons of materials are cycled input, versus 84.4 Giga tons coming from extracted resources. Out of the materials not cycled, the majority is lost beyond recovery - either dispersed in the form of emissions or unrecoverable waste. Housing, Nutrition and Mobility together represent more than 82% of the total material footprint.

Within the next 30 years, it is estimated that the amount of new construction will equal the amount, which is already built today. The rapidly growing construction sector is currently among the world’s largest producers of waste: every year, 1.3 billion tons of construction and demolition waste is generated worldwide and half of it comes from construction.

Consequently, there is a crucial need for new circular solutions, especially in the building sector.

The case of Europe

The building sector in Europe is strategic for the economies of most countries.  Around 4 out of every 10 houses in Europe were built before 1960, a time when building practices were poor by today’s standards. The priority is to sustain and preserve what is already built, and in case renovation or demolishment is needed, the idea is to proceed using circular process, where materials can re-enter the construction sector and be re-used appropriately.

The ambition of the European Commission is to accelerate the transition towards a circular economy, enabling EU cities to lead the international system beyond the current outdated take-make-dispose model. As circular economy is a complex and far-reaching concept, the European Commission has established in December 2015  a unique comprehensive strategy referred to as the “circular economy Action Plan”. The action plan is an effective response to the 2030 Agenda, since it empowers public authorities and stakeholders to accelerate the circular economy transition. After four years of successful implementation of the Action Plan, one White Paper on circular economy of the Word Economic Forum (2018) and a lot of published reports, the European Commission could identify needs, towards acceleration of circular economy:

1) Circular economy is complex. Therefore, a comprehensive strategy to close the loop and targeting strategic sectors is the best tool to address all its aspects.

2) There are short and long-term benefits in making circular economy a priority across departments inside a public institution. Services dealing with environmental protection, industry, research, international cooperation, and potentially many others, can contribute to mainstream the concept within and outside the institution.

3) Circular change is faster when economic actors and civil society are directly involved. An effective public policy on circular economy needs support from business and civil society in order to maximize its benefits for the environment and for the economy.

The building sector itself is aware that it must change its management model to turn circular and that it can comply with the new approach to the ‘sustainable use of resources’ set out in the European Building Products Regulations.

However, there is still a lot to be done at local level.

Acting locally

A holistic approach and integration of the views in local action planning to meet the ambitious EU goals on circularity, is the key.

A common success factor in circular building design is stakeholder engagement from the very beginning. Indeed, early co-design processes with end-users, technicians, suppliers and communities, and taking everyone’s needs into consideration overall, is crucial in creating a holistic design. Moreover, public procurement regulation can be a powerful driver with the power to play a significant role in mainstreaming circularity practices. In terms of knowledge dissemination, finished building projects and reuse of buildings and areas can serve for further awareness raising and experience sharing. Additionally, communication of public data through city portals, including the discussion and open data in relations to indicators, is a powerful tool towards the engagement and motivation of related stakeholders including citizens. An open knowledge and competence building portfolio, comprised of training pack, indicators, data, good practices, integrated with specific tools’ application guides, like Pay-as-You Throw (PAYT) systems, could enhance the implementation of circular economy principles at local level. All that would not be effectively realised if not integrated within a holistic roadmap for urban resources management.

These topics have been raised and discussed among the partners of the URGE APN project, during a fruitful kick-off meeting in Utrecht, on the 15^th and 16^th of October. A lot is about to come, in order to fully exploit opportunities and really make use of this strategic sector as an enabler to meet circularity objectives and goals at local and EU level, so stay tuned!!

Groups of people or geographical areas can face barriers to accessing culture; existing cultural offers may not include the stories or cultural forms which reach out to current populations. To address these challenges, eight European capital cities have come together through URBACT to form the ACCESS network. Each participating city has committed to working together to include more people in and through culture and to adapting their approach to policymaking to make this happen.

Amsterdam [NL], Dublin [IE], Lisbon [PT], London [UK], Sofia [BG], Talinn [EE], Riga [LV] and Vilnius [LT] each have rich and vibrant cultural offers but have each identified challenges specific to their cities in making their cultural offers more inclusive. In Riga, for example, 70% of all cultural institutions are concentrated in just two of 58 of the city’s neighbourhoods. Amsterdam, now a ‘majority minority’ city (ie most of the population is from a minority ethnic group), culture has not fully adapted to the demographic change. Tallinn has identified a knowledge gap such that they have no qualitative evidence that the city’s cultural offer is actually meeting people’s needs and contributing to wellbeing. Each city found resonance in the others’ challenges. Collectively, the network has therefore identified three areas of common need: to widen participation, to spread cultural infrastructure more equitably across the city and to improve data collection and use around cultural participation.

They have also identified a new approach to policymaking as a central requirement. As Araf Ahmadali, Senior Policy Advisor for Arts and Culture, City of Amsterdam said, “We have to start with a recognition that as civil servants we don’t know all the answers; we’re not at the head of the table, we’re part of the table.” Work to deliver cultural inclusion needed to be genuinely inclusive: not culture for everyone, but culture with everyone.

“Everything we do is based on conversation” Tracy Geraghty, Dublin City Culture Company

Discussions between the partner cities and invited local stakeholders at the inaugural meeting of the ACCESS network in Amsterdam in September identified five key aspects of an inclusive approach to cultural policymaking:

- an ongoing conversation: discussion about culture in the city should be continuous, not occasional. As Tracy Geraghty explained, this is already the cornerstone of the Dublin City Culture Company’s ‘tea and chat’ model of programme development: “Everything we do is based on conversation; we don’t do anything without having spoken to the communities we serve first.”

- be open and accessible: make it easy for people and organisations to get in touch

- listen and learn: many people and organisations have experience of how to share culture more widely and are keen to share their expertise

- reconsider their city ‘centre’: if a different area was the city centre, what cultural offer would you expect to see there? what institutions and support would it need?

- challenge existing definitions: what is talent? what is quality? what is culture? Policymakers must be open to new and different definitions.

Each city has committed to developing this approach for their own cultural policymaking.

The ACCESS network will continue to collaborate and share ideas and practice over the next two years as each city develops its own Action Plan for ‘culture with everyone.’ More policy and practice ideas from the network will be shared in future blogs.

The first part of this article (see REFILL@LILLE, PART 1) showed the policy design lab approach of the Metropole of Lille (FR) to kick-off support for a Working Group on Temporary Use. The second part focuses on how civil servants from Lille Metropole benefited from the experience of URBACT REFILL network.

Learning from inspirational practices

The field experience of settling a “temporary public policy design lab" only scratches the surface of the problem of more than 5,000 vacant spaces on the territory and the appetite local stakeholders have for temporary use. But, immersion is worth 1,000 words: the Metropole civil servants do not usually address a new project in this way! By acquiring a significant experience of the problem, they are ready to explore and analyse other temporary use experiences in France and Europe. A wealth of case studies awaits from sixty local and national examples, as well and many European references conducted across Europe for three years within URBACT "REFILL The City" including 10 European cities: Ghent (BE), Athens (EL), Amersfoort (NL), Bremen (DE), Cluj (RO), Helsinki (FI), Nantes (FR), Ostrava (CZ), Poznan (PL) and Riga (LV).

A temporary roadmap

Building on the Roadmap to temporary use tool (from the toolbox produced and made available by the REFILL network) helps the establishment of a practice of temporary use in cities. This roadmap represents the “city of REFILL”: a virtual city that would combine the best practices of the 10 participating cities.

Different neighbourhoods represent the different major steps of the establishment of a temporary use practice: a "zone of cultural, social, entrepreneurial" candidates for temporary use; an "administrative district" dealing with legal, technical and safety; a "district with support services” to temporary use; etc.

A circular road connects each of these neighbourhoods, suggesting about fifteen milestones as "mapping the vacant spaces":
- "Analysing the supply and demand";
- "Building the political support";
- "Developing a new temporary use value creation model"; etc.

Unlike a framed method, the REFILL Roadmap is like a tourist map suggesting different possible itineraries each city must choose, starting with the most pertinent actions, organising its progress in the local context and creating its own route.

The forming lab ambassadors discussed the implications of each example, gathering in small groups to fill in an analytical framework. After the field immersion, the lab consolidated and enriched its understanding of temporary use.

A pitch presenting a first rational of temporary use applied to the Metropole supported by a series of examples was recorded in the form of a short video. The film raised awareness about the many vacant spaces, the costs incurred for the public authority, and showcased temporary use as an opportunity with potential to host social, cultural, entrepreneurial initiatives - bringing people together, revitalising neighbourhoods, experimenting urban development projects and so on.

Sparking political attention

Thanks to experience and research, the Metropole forming lab had got a good idea of ​​the challenges and opportunities for temporary use public service, putting together a kind of "service desk" of knowledge open to all. To create a solid launching pad for the future service, the Metropole required a large-scale demonstration project, drafting and accelerating the service and likely to convince at political level.

Inspiration then came from the city of Riga, REFILL network partner. Elected Capital of Culture in 2014, the city was experiencing a strong economic crisis and did not have the necessary infrastructure to host such an event nor the means to build them. The city made a collaborative agreement with a group of urban activists, squatters and actors of the cultural scene taken via the association Free Riga. The plan? To start a practice of temporary using vacant spaces to host the programming of its Capital of Culture! The urgency to find spaces to showcase the vibrant Latvian art scene helped to overcome the political cautiousness and set a precedent on which to build for all stakeholders.

The European Metropole of Lille will be the World Design Capital in 2020. The Metropole’s application was selected because it offered an ambitious territorial transformation through design, based on a call for innovation projects by the design of a set of social themes and particularly the emergence of design applied to public policy.

Although not comparable in all respects to the context of Riga in 2014, Lille Design World Capital 2020 seems to be a potential "launching pad" to install the practice of temporary use in the territory. More than 450 Proofs of Concept (POC) are announced in the territory for 2020. The POC is a key step in the design process allowing a light experiment to demonstrate viability of a concept before further developing the project.

The Metropole lab and the Working Group for Temporary Use have taken up the REFILL toolbox and co-constructed their own route towards the implementation of temporary use.

• First, the creation of a series of temporary use spaces during the Lille Design World Capital 2020. To do this, the ambassadors of the forming lab and the Property department identified a first group of 20 potential spaces, visited and documented the most promising and put together a first online catalogue of options. In parallel, they explored contracts, which services to provide and how to assess the proof of concepts of temporary use during 2020.
   
• Secondly, (after an assessment a year in) a policy of temporary use at the Metropole of Lille is to be established. This step includes the registration of "temporary use" in the territorial development and patrimonial valuation strategy of the Metropole, completing the online catalogue of vacant spaces and the establishment of a mediation service between supply and demand (technical and legal tools, financial support, etc.) internal or outsourced to a third party.

Conclusions

This experience allows us to make some assumptions of mutual enrichment between the URBACT approach (networks of towns sharing at European level on a specific challenge in terms of public policy creating an action plan) and, secondly, the approach of co-construction a public policy design lab (based on an innovative action-training process based on pilot projects).

The capitalised experience of 10 cities over a period of 3 years from REFILL network has accelerated the process of reflection of our Working Group for Temporary Use.

The organisation of the network deliverables in the form of a modular toolbox, together with a wide range of case studies (all articulated in the form of an open roadmap) was immediately actionable by a third city. Mediation transfer by an actor involved in both REFILL and the Metropole’s lab is a facilitating factor.

The existence of a public policies design lab in the Metropole’s administration helped seize the REFILL network’s experience faster and more efficiently.

The lab’s ability to partially overcome the slow decision-making and reporting processes and at least initiate a first experiment extends the co-construction process to stakeholders, making it immediately actionable.

The public policy design lab and URBACT methods have an integrated approach in common, as well as the involvement of an ecosystem of stakeholders committed to co-design and public policy programming. The lab approach adds field experimentation, a key step in the design process to simulate and test each action of an action plan before its deployment on the ground. Its benefit is on the one hand, to test and improve each action and on the other hand to involve the actors and trigger its implementation.

The exchanges about a wide range of "inspiring cases" collected through REFILL helped initiate the strategic conversation among stakeholders in Lille and identify what they consider a good practice for their situation and seize an opportunity such as the Lille Design World Capital 2020.

The examples of Ghent and Riga, even if they are from different socio-cultural contexts, comfort the actors in the idea that if it is not a given, it's possible since others have already done it.

Finally, the partnership with the European Metropole of Lille proves the usefulness of lessons capitalised by an URBACT network such as REFILL. It validates the methodology and tools developed for the workshop: “Make your own path to the temporary use” at the URBACT Festival in Lisbon in September 2018. It also heralds the arrival other REFILL development processes, like the one initiated with the City of Brussels and Brussels at the end of 2018.

Know more about reusing vacant spaces on Remakingthecity.urbact.eu!

Reasons are manifold for the neglect and vacancy of these buildings, among them difficult ownership situations such as unresolved ownership status, limited ability or willingness of owners to invest, multiple changes of ownership, speculation, bankruptcies of real estate developers, large communities of heirs, mortgage debt or ownerless properties.

The neglected vacant buildings become increasingly a problem: Partly they constitute a public security hazard; they effected negatively the neighbouring properties; the demolition of the buildings threatens the inner urban density, the functioning traditional urban structure and the historic cityscape. This also reduces the identity-forming effect of the inner city for the citizens.

However, such residential buildings, in particular with heritage values are increasingly seen as a positive quality, not only in their intrinsic qualities as spacious and valued places to live but also in terms of their potential for modern, accessible and affordable inner-city living and to provide space for needed functions in the city.

Chemnitz’s solutions!

Chemnitz (DE) has been facing this problem. More than 18 % of the housing stock had been vacant. It concerned in inner city locations in particular the buildings that had been built during the city’s boom years in the industrial era before World War I. The demand for modern and newly-constructed homes, the oversupply in the historic tenement sector and other reasons contributed to the severe neglect and disrepair of many of those old buildings. This in turn led to the high vacancy rate and even demolition of these buildings. The free real estate and financial markets had failed to give these buildings a second chance!

But the City of Chemnitz reacted: In 2006 based on a research project for the cost-effective renovation of old buildings through user-owner cooperation in Chemnitz, the ‘Agentur StadtWohnen Chemnitz’ (CityLiving Agency Chemnitz) was found. The goal was in particular to coordinate relevant stakeholders and support alternative housing projects in order to enable the sustainable development of unused historic apartment buildings in need of repair.

In fact, the ‘Housing agency’ is a consulting service (project) for interested owners of neglected and/or vacant properties, potential investors and users with an interest in common forms of living and creative ideas for the subsequent use of buildings. From the outset of the ‘Housing agency’, its task was to function as a coordination body, which connects owners, potential users, investors and local authorities and provides them with free-of-charge consulting services for the reactivation of the vacant apartment buildings in the extended inner city where the free real estate market had failed.

The services are carried out by a local private urban development company, which received this task through a public tender by the city. The ‘Housing agency’ fulfils tasks that had not been foreseen within the city administration. At the same time through the private company (WGS mbh) additional know-how and work capacities are obtained.

Given the fact that the City of Chemnitz usually does not directly get involved in the housing market, the privately run ‘Housing agency’ presented the possibility for the city administration to informally influence the development of buildings that are a priority for different reasons for the city.

7 key activities

To fulfil the task of the ‘Housing agency’ they concentrate on seven key activities:

1. Identification of focus areas and buildings in need of investment
2. Collecting relevant data of the buildings/ monitoring
3. Contacting the owners of buildings
4. Marketing the building
5. Site visits with interested people
6. Connecting owners and potential buyers
7. Accompanying buyers to liaise with municipal departments and other relevant stakeholders

Although the services are free of charge, the Housing agency “pays off” for the city as through the reuse and revitalisation of the buildings modernised living space is created, neighbourhoods upgraded, tax revenues increased and substitution measures by the city avoided.

Over the past six years, the ‘Housing agency’ has become the central collector and distributer of information on vacant tenement buildings in the extended inner city of Chemnitz. It has helped, disseminated and connected in ways that neither public authorities nor private actors alone could have achieved – through continuing communication with official partners from different segments of urban government and the informal, pro-active approach of the owners, local initiatives and players in the real estate market.

Thus, in June 2017, the ‘Agentur StadtWohnen Chemnitz’ was labelled as “URBACT Good Practice” under the title “Housing agency for shrinking cities”. The URBACT programme justified this as follows:

“Many cities face the problem of deteriorating built heritage with vacancies and functional loss. The ‘Housing agency’ as a public project carried out by a private company offers a flexible and proactive approach to connect owners, potential investors or users and public authorities for the revitalisation of those buildings. Positive effects are the activation of owners or the change of ownership and the channelling of public grants to places where they can be used most effectively”.

This Good Practice represents therefore not only a topical improvement for cities which are suffering from inner-city vacancies, but also a good example of new forms of cooperation and intermediate structures between government bodies, civil society and business which can be transferred to a variety of contexts.

The URBACT Transfer Network ALT/BAU

Six cities in Europe (Constanta, Riga, Rybnik, Seraing, Turin and Vilafranca) have join the URBACT Transfer Network ALT/BAU, lead by the good-practice city of Chemnitz, to transfer and adapt the good-practice model of Chemnitz’ housing agency to their local context. For this, the city partners will develop and implement within 24 months Transfer Plans of the good-practice model to their city. The intention is to help reactivate empty residential buildings in need of repair, located in or close to the inner city. This by connecting and coordinating owners, potential investors, users and public authorities through innovative partnerships.

So in 24 months to come at least 6 more cities in Europe will be ready to give unused residential buildings a second chance to:

• increase the building stock for affordable housing and inner city living;
• support a social mixture and integration of inhabitants,
• prevent further degradation and loss of cultural heritage,
• reduce the negative impact on the cityscape and neighbourhood by neglected buildings.

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Visit the network's page: ALT/BAU