Viladecans second bilateral meeting report by URBACT Napoli / USEAct project

USEAct Urban Sustainable Environmental Actions

INTERVENTIONS

SECOND TRILATERAL MEETING REPORT th

VILADECANS, 25 June 2014 Meeting Venue: Viladecans Business Park

REAL ESTATE DEVELOPMENT

USEAct Second Trilateral meeting Report Urban Sustainable Environmental Actions Hosting Partner Viladecans City Council Enric Serra USEAct Viladecans City Council Project coordinator Contacts: email eserrac@viladecans.cat

Lead Partner City of Naples Urban Planning Department URBACT Projects_and Networks on Integrated Urban Development Policies - Central Direction Urban Planning and Management - UNESCO Site Gaetano Mollura USEAct Project coordinator Anna Arena Finance officer Maria Luna Nobile Communication officer Vincenzo Fusco LSG coordinator Contacts: phone +39 081 7958932 - 34 - 17 email gaetano.mollura@comune.napoli.it urbactnapoli@comune.napoli.it Lead Expert Vittorio Alberto Torbianelli USEAct Project Lead Expert Contacts: phone +39 040 5582749 email vittorioalberto.torbianelli@arch.units.it Thematic Expert Pauline Geoghegan USEAct Project Thematic Expert Contacts: email paulinegeoghegan@hotmail.com www.urbact.eu www.urbact.eu/useact

This Second Trilateral meeting Report is written by Vittorio Torbianelli, UseAct Lead Expert. It refers to the Second USEAct Trilateral Meeting held in Viladecans Gaetano Mollura, Anna Arena, Maria Luna Nobile and Vincenzo Fusco, (Lead Partner team) contributed to editing the report.

Figure 1. 22@ District Barcelona

DIFFERENTIATING INTERVENTIONS – REAL ESTATE DEVELOPMENT Meeting Report by Vittorio A. Torbianelli UseAct Lead Expert

People attending the meeting Gaetano Mollura USEAct Coordinator, Vittorio Torbianelli USEAct Lead Expert Linda Iren K. Duffy, Østfold County Council,

1. INTRODUCTION AND MAIN ISSUES 1.1

Introduction

Karoline Bergdal, Østfold County Council Marius Ecea, Baia Mare Metropolitan Area Álvaro Cerezo Ibarrondo, City of Barakaldo Enric Serra del Castillo, City of Viladecans Marina Jarque, City of Viladecans Antoni Chaves, City of Viladecans Enric Batlle External Expert Viladecans Abel Porcar External Expert Viladecans

The second UseAct B/T meeting took place in th Viladecans, Business Park, Spain, on 25 June 2014, and was attended by three UseAct Partners (Baia Mare Metropolitan Area, Ostfold County and Municipality ofViladecans) interested to discuss the “Land use differentiation” issue”, from the “Real estate development” perspective. With respect of the thematic structure of the UseAct Project, the theme of the B/T can be considered as a sub-section of the II Useact Theme (“Intervention to Reuse Urban Areas – management. Partnesrships, Funding, Functions”). In particular, subthemes recalled are “Improving public administration ability on controlling and managing high quality and sustainable reuse interventions”, and “Inducing local added value in reuse interventions”. Questions, to be answered by partecipants, were essentially the following ones:

a) How to strategically and operationally "drive" and control the planning and development processes in order to achieve more "targeted" outcomes, in terms of nature of the developments?

by the Lead Expert as a key reference, shows very clearly which are the main drivers of business attraction for cities, within the current global competition environment.

b) What could be the strategic framework for the decisions and the tools to be adopted to better control the type of developments

A first message of the KPMG’s study is that costs are still a key variable for attracting business. This aspect should never be forgotten, since redevelopment schemes often represent more expensive solutions than green-field alternatives. It is also true, that other factors are very relevant as well, but a clear target-costing approach is a good starting point for any local strategy aimed at attracting businesses.

As recalled by the Lead Partner, Gaetano Mollura, partners decided to discuss togheter about how public administration can select, support and incentivate delivery of specific typologies of real estate developments, capable to create values for the area on a long term perspective.

KPMG Key Site Selection Factors Avoiding any “generalist” approach to development, local authorites are more and more interested – in particular during the current difficult economic period and after relativelt recent real estate “bubble” experiences - in selecting “urban functions” to be provided trough developments, with the twofold aim of:  increasing ratio between positive local impacts and resources consumed (land included)  reducing risk of unfear rent-distribution and short term orientd and socially unsustainable developments. Economic activities, (industrial production or services), on one hand, or highly socially valued residential developments (e.g. affordable housing), are typical options that tend to guarantee lon term social-economic sustainability of the developments. However, local authorities, for many reasons, are often induced to grant planning consent orders for developments - e.g retail or ordinary residential developments – althougth they frequently do not guarantee adequate long term social and economic returns. Partners attending the meeting were interested, in particular, in production-oriented developments, that often allow long term employment and value added generation.

1.2 How do you attract business? The UseAct Lead Expert, Vittorio Torbianelli, in his introductory presentation entitled “How to attract business after the economic downturn”, focused on the “business attraction” issue straightforwardly, showing how much it is important, for local authorities, having a clear vision of their own ability to compete with other business location. The recently published KPMG’s Guide to International Business Location Costs (2014 Edition), entitled “Competitive Alternatives”1, used 1

The document is available at: http://www.competitivealternatives.com/reports/2014_ compalt_report_vol1_en.pdf

In general terms, Europe appears to be rather competitive for international business attraction, but there are many differences among different countries and cities. Moreover, it seems that I many cases, “business attraction target” is not sufficiently focused on by local administrations. With the aim of “benchmarking” cities (or regions) it is important to identify the relevant parameters for cost assessment. In general, it should be recognized – stressed the Lead Expert - that different manufacturing or services sectors face different requirements when they have to select a site and, therefore, are sensitive to “different” variables or show different sensitivity-levels for specific costs. KPMG identifies, for each manufacturing or services sub-sector, an ideally “representative” company that can be used as a point of reference to assess the expected/perceived site costs. Focusing on the (potential) location related costs for different sectors – and benchmarking them with international competitors – allows, among others, to get what are, potentially, the activities that, more than other, could be interested in local sites and, consequently, to develop more targeted attraction policies. For most UseAct partners is plausible that services sector shows greater potentials of using redeveloped “urban” sites, than the manufacturing sector.

The key message derived from the KPMG studies is that the degree of variation in business costs between major cities in some countries is quite remarkable, and this highlights the importance of having up-to-date data on cost competitiveness. This information is important to businesses making investment decisions and governments seeking investment. However, further specific questions arise, also for the UseAct partners. 

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Are cities or local communities carrying on any benchmarking research to monitor their city’s positioning within the “cost ranking” global (or national) scenario? Are potential “competitors” (other business locations) clearly identified? Is there a clear “target-costing” strategy, as a component of the whole urban marketing strategy aimed at attracting production activities? What is the level of “facility costs” – and of other real estate related costs – which could be (or actually are) affected by the “redevelopment decision framework”? What other location costs are (or could be under control of local authorities? Are they fully known and monitored, or considered as a possible tool of an integrated attraction policy? What (and how relevancy) costs are specifically related to urban reuse targets (e.g. soil rehabilitation, etc)? Are they compatible with the “market requirements”? What about further planning related potential constraints or duties (e.g. urban uses)? What is the role played by other non-cost related factors and what could be the importance of further “quality” features of new developments (e.g. industrial parks, urban design, etc.)?

All the above issues are a clear example of how any “urban reuse” policy aimed at reaching ambitious but fundamental targets (as business attraction is) should be soundly assessed and deeply integrated into broader strategic policy and marketing frameworks. Regrettably, wishful planning alone is not enough to attract economic activities, Vittorio Torbianelli concluded.

1.3 Learning from a failed “business attraction plan” An example of “failure” of local development strategies aimed at attracting economic production into an urban area, was presented by Eric Serra, Municipality of Viladecns. The origin of the “story” dates to 1976, when the Barcelona Metropolitan General Plan (PGM)

established “industrial use” for a not developed but very accessible area of Viladans. The area was located not far from the coast, the main infrastructures and from the airport. It’s a triangularshaped zone with a surface about 450.000 sqm. Most of the land was then acquired by the Institut Català del Sol (INCASOL), the development and housing agency of the Catalan Regional Government. INCASOL presented several urban planning proposals, aimed at developing logistics activities on the area. The City Council did not agree with this use and never proceeded, since the City Council was interested in developing activities capable to provide higher “value added” and more jobs for the area. Municipality started to develop its own strategy and – without carrying out any in depth SWOT analysis or risk analysis of potential different options – and published (in 2002) a "Feasibility study” for an Industrial aeroparc in Viladecans” The study was carried out by “Aeroport Management and Promotion SA”, the local company owned by the Chamber of Commerce, Industry and Navigation of Barcelona, under the commission of the City Council. The study defined Viladecans as an optimal location for an “aeroparc”, due to the reported existence of a growing industrial cluster in the Barcelona region (“Barcelona Aeronautics and Space” cluster BAiE) and of a robust involvement of official stakeholders (government, business and financial community, university, etc.). In 2003, the Government of Catalonia (Department of Territorial Policy and Public Works, the Department of Labour and Industry), the Viladecans City Council and the Chamber of Commerce of Barcelona signed a "cooperation framework agreement for the promotion, implementation and joint management of the Aerospace and Mobility Park in Viladecans” and, in 2004, the Government of Catalonia published jointly an agreement on the promotion of local aerospace industry. In 2005, “Aguirre Newman” consulting published a new study aimed at assessing economic viability of the project, considering the potential business demand. The study once again highlighted the advantages potentially provided by the Viladecans “Aerospace and Mobility Park” (such as excellent accessibility, optimal position in relation to the centre of Viladecans, proximity to BCN Airport and to the University, services and product potential suppliers located there) in comparison with alternative locations, characterized by lower industrialization/specialization levels. In 2006, a public Consortium for the development of the Aerospace and Mobility Business Park was established, with the aim of implementing urban planning framework and public works. The “Aerospace Park” lay-out was splitted into three main areas (“Productive park”, “Technology Park”, “Services Node”). The Consortium worked in

continuous contact with the aeronautical industry companies to try to fit industry requirements at the best. The Consortium also tried to improve the attraction potential of the facility trough key projects, such as the “Wind Tunnel project” or trough locating advanced technology catalysts, as CTAE (Aerospace Technology Center) Although the road map adopted appears to be an exemplary “good practice model”, the process in fact

has not being implemented: because of several exogenous reasons (such as economic downturn, and collapse of the real estate, reduced availability of public funds for subsidies and construction, and lack of vitality of the aeronautical sector companies) the project was abandoned in 2010.

Consideration on the Aereospace Park Project The UseAct Lead Expert, after the presentation on the “Aereospace Park”, told that it is clear that the dramatic structural drop (2006-2010) of real estate values (and in particular of soil values in comparison with the construction costs strongly affected the sustainability of the “Aereospace Park” financial framework. However, it is also plausible – he said - that carrying on an accurate, independent and not locally-driven appraisals of the true attraction potential of the area for the aerospace industry, considered at global level, would have putted in evidence weaknesses and risks of such a project, strongly boosted, likely for political reasons, by local authorities.

1.4 The Local Action Plan of Viladecans: an occasion to discuss about redevelopment of former industrial areas Municipality of Viladecans is, of course, one of the UseAct partners that are specifically interested in reusing underused urban areas as an opportunity to attract business activity. Viladecans cases studies was an important source of learning during the meeting. Enric Batlle, (of “Batlle I Roig Arquitectes”) discussed an another Viladecans case, trough a presentation entitled “The influence of the structure of the system of open spaces in the transformation of urban environments (innovation and knowledge activities)”. The presentation discussed the Lay-out redesign strategy for the former industrial areas located in Viladacan. This area, called “Polygon Centre”, is the target area of the Viladecans Local Action Plan. It is a currently underused industrial site located just outside the city-core of Viladecans, and represents, at the moment, the major economy-oriented redevelopment target for the local community. Recently, “Batlle I Roig Arquitectes”, on behalf of the Viladecans City Council, started to deal with the “lay-out design issue, to explore general lay-out solutions able to better fit the “innovation and knowledge activities” attraction policy. The research focused on the lack of public space problem and the role played by the structure of open spaces in the transformation of the urban environment. The study identifies the main features of the existing spatial/economic setting of the “polygon” (mixture of different sizes of business, originally small plots but with some very large properties today, type of activities and functions located), and the main constraints and problems (low integration within the urban fabric, insufficient public spaces – only 15% of the total surface -, presence of not utilized spaces within large plots). Specific attention is paid to identify the current ongoing processes (sprawling of new small businesses and retail; etc) The study proposes, as main output, some possible lay-out strategies to create new high-quality open spaces and “paths” that could be of use to improve the links with the city core and to enhance the attractiveness of the area. Moreover, a planning/design strategy aimed at suggesting, for different sub-areas, different degrees of transformation and project detail. All the proposals allow to maintain, at least at a certain degree, the existing activities located in the area.

2. THE VISION OF THE OHER PARTNERS 2.1 Identifiyng needs and areas: the integrated development plan of Baia Mare Second meeting session started with the presentation of Baia Mare Metropolitan Area Association, represented by Marius Ecea. He firstly recalled the “urban sprawl” issue at Municipality level: in Baia Mare, because of a builtup area continoulsly expanding, there is a risk of an uncontrolled development of the urban form generating unfavorable long-term implications (fragmented landscape, inefficient networks). Territorial development should ensure a controlled expansion, phased with the space limitations of the city, restricting any form of unplanned urban development at the periphery. Prohibition to build on agricultural land located within the city today will provide significant reserves of land for the balanced development of the city in the long term. Limitation of territorial expansion will be compensated through measures of densification in the urban areas within city, especially regarding the plots that are currently unused: industrial platforms or disused railway areas, low density residential areas, plots vacant in urban structure that could be used for investments (housing, business development etc). The uncontrolled evolution of the urban form along the main access routes and the disproportionate expansion of urban area are a threat to the city's landscape. In this regard, an urban growth along the Săsar river seems to be the right thing to do. The development perspective, from the center to the periphery, targets the inner abandoned areas, while lately investment used free land from the periphery or even outside the city itself. It is necessary to reconsider the use of brownfield sites, vacant land and the renewal of residential neighbourhoods. In order to be considered a “green city”, nature must be present within the city and a minimum surface of green area per capita must be ensured. To contribute to overcome the above mentioned issue, some tools are potentially available. After Romania joined the European Union in 2007, the structural funds have been available for Romania, and the national authorities prepared different operational programmes, the most

important, the regional operational programme, financing interventions in urban areas. For this purpose a new planning tool, the so called “Integrated Urban Development Plan” was designated in order to better support the renewal of the Romanian cities and medium size towns. This tool has to be coherent with the development strategy of the urban settlement, but also takes into consideration the general urban plan in force and opinions of the local community, expressed in public meetings organised by the local authority. It must be approved by the Local Council. It shall be considered a public driven tool able to guide the redevelopment/ renewal of the cities, setting the priority intervention zone, the urban spaces & buildings that need regeneration and also the way future developments (residential and industrial ones) shall be encouraged (urban development vision). The advantage of an integrated approach, able to tie social, economic, environmental issues typical of urban deprived areas, consists in the fact that the local authority can simultaneously handle problems that in reality are interconnected and affect both urban and peri-urban areas. The Integrated Urban Development Plan for Baia Mare City has been approved by the Local Council in 2009, after public consultation. The package of projects included in the plan (nine projects) has been co-financed by the Ministry of Regional Development and Public Administration, from the national and European Regional Development Fund grants. As far as the “quality” of urban uses is concerned, a SWOT analysis (general context, habitat, economy, society, territorial and administrative cooperation) and results of the local community consultation contributed to the identification of the priority intervention zones, defining 5 inner city urban areas needing specific intervention. The local administration proposed an action plan to regenerate 2 of the city zones, the old town area and the Vasile Alecsandri social neighbourhood. A project which is included in the the Integrated Urban Development Plan is the “Social and Multifunctional Centre for Romani people in Baia 2 Mare” . Objectives of the project are: creating a comprehensive and efficient social services system, able to provide the framework for social inclusion of all vulnerable groups of citizens and increase the quality of urban life; improving quality of social

See: http://www.spasbm.ro/proiect.php?p=174

services infrastructure and to ensure equal access to all citizens to these services;

with the help of social assistance responsible and volunteers – students and elders.

The intervention consisted in rehabilitation, modernization and equipping the building that hosts the social centre in order to provide social services to vulnerable group of citizens, especially of “Romani” ethnics. The Centre is currently managed by the Social Assistance Public Service Company of Baia Mare

Industrial Development in Baia Mare Municipality Regarding the industrial developments, there is a specific law that regulates the creation of industrial parks (law 186/2013), but local authorities may also support industrial park developments by granting incentives to both developers, and enterprises. Baia Mare Municipality has agreed to support the companies that are willing to locate in the administrative area of the city, or to extend their activity, the desired effect being represented by creation of new jobs. The support is thought as a minimis aid scheme (Local Council Decision 374/2011) consisting of various tax exemption if investing in Baia Mare, investments that generate new jobs, necessarily. Unfortunately, the local council decision does not identify specific areas proper for investments, nor forbids the entrepreneur to develop industrial capacities in some “restricted areas”, but it forces the beneficiary to maintain the jobs for three, and respectively five year, depending on the activity field. Nevertheless, the areas suitable for economic and even industrial activities are identified in the General Urban Plan of the city, and it’s subsequent zone urban plans. So far, each new development (residential or industrial) needs building permit from the chief architect of the city. Enhancing coordination between tools managed by municipalities and integrated development plans at a broader scale would be likely benefit.

2.2 Differentiating intervention: enhancing respect of planning rules After presentation of Marius Ecea, Mrs. Linda Iren K. Duffy (Ostfold County, Norway) focused on possible approaches to strategically and operationally "drive" and control the planning and development processes in order to achieve more "targeted" outcomes, in terms of nature of the developments. She discussed the issue from the Norvegian perspective, where a specific challenge is avoiding small towns decide as separated units, promoting more cooperation to achieve development in the «difficult areas». The setting, howevere, is, in general, rather complex, wth fragmented ownership, low short-term market property value (but probably higher in long term value), large investments in infrastructure needed, unpleasant outdoor-spaces and/or bad connection to the town center.

In order to engage investors, public administraton should create more “predictability” conditions and visions for these complex areas, to induce the numerous land owners with very different interests and timeframes to agree on common investments and visions of how this area should be transformed. Main targets are densifying and upgrading these areas to increase attractiveness and make the prices rise. At the same time it is important to assure that people living there, and in particular those that are socially marginalized, can continue living in the area, and if possible become owner of their dwellings.

Since the Norwegian property marked is fully deregulated, real prices of a house have risen dramatically, and the number of houses built a year has sank. In order to provide enough housing provision for inhabitants, and to improve the social profile of Ostfold towns, the public sector should likely play a more active role. But how is it possible to do that, when tools available in the past – as public support or regulated real estate markets - no longer exist, or have “gone out of fashion”? In the Norwegian planning framework, some very good tools in fact exist, and they could be likely used to ensure sustainable development in towns through coordinating territorial, environmental, social, economic and cultural variables.

When municipal plans are designed, it should be recalled that it is compulsory to take in consideration stakeholders opinions, and to debate the planning issue publicily. Moreover, law allows, municipalities to order - at least in principle - “obligations” about type of development and its physical appearance, outdoor spaces and use of the building. In a situation where developers were “lining up” to build something, and local decision makers were confident and concerned with urban development, this would give the local government together with citizens pretty good control and power to steer development. In fact, such specific powers of municipalities are not very used, because of politician’s fear of scaring away potential investors or because lacks of capacity in public administration. Furthermore, when obligations are ordered, not always requirements are implemented, while, often, special excemptions are granted. This is the case, in particular, of town centers, where there are ambitious targets for densification and growth and there is a possibility to get quick profit by developing “quantity” rather than “quality”. In several projects exemptions from hightrestrictions and public space provision are granted, thus compromising towns identity and scale, and lowering the living- qualities of the area rather than enhancing it. “Alliances” between politicians and devlopers often take place “outside” the framework of the planning process to ensure the interests of the developers. Mrs. Duffy pointed out that, long term oriented planning with even stronger focus on participation, and stronger respect of planning rules, is important.

The legal framework – Mrs. Duffy told - is already available, but it needs to be enforced effectively. Openness and participation is surely required, but more openness in the political process is a priority as well. To ensure that outcome, politicians need better knowledge and consiousness about what type of development they need, and that any development isn’t allways better than none. If there would be clearer outspoken political targets and more transpartent statements on qualities desired in town centers, there would be less chance of compromising quality. It is clear – as pointed out by Mrs. Duffy – that some flexibility in the systemis needed. For instance, where deviation from the regulations and plans is requested, appropriate

compensation should be imposed (e.g. as obligations of upgrading neighbourhood parks or other public spaces, or putting a much higher architectural standard to the building). It should be also recalled – Mrs Duffy concluded – thar regulation is only one instrument, that works better for controlling development than for driving it.

Financial instruments are also needed to create the before mentioned “predictability” in complex areas. Development agreements, where public sector takes on some of financial obligations from a private developer in order to secure public interest, are a good example of these complementary financial tools.

Attracting businesses in Ostfold: A shared SWOT analysis During the Workshop of the B/T meeting, partners tried to identify togheter variables that are relevant to promore production oriented developments. Ostfold County, discussing with other partners, provided the following SWOT analysis, as an example of strategic approach to discuss the issue with Municipalities. Strengths • Good avalibility of analyses and documentation • Strong legal framework • Good location • Good development in some key industrial sectors • Some finance through “infrastructure packages” • Resouces in the local communities

Opportunities • “the attraction project” conducted with research institute-Telemarksforskning • The “rewards for better public transport” and City-package funding new infrastructure with impact on development and attractiveness. • Government part-funding of new business strategy for Moss • Cooperation vertically and horizontally across municipalities and sectors • The new government focusing on business development and functional city-regions

Weaknesses • Few incentives for establishing the businesses we want, where we want them • Lack of communication between planning and business development, not speaking the same language • Lack of vision, not thinking big/international • Low level of education by comparison to neighbouring regions • Weak culture for entrepreneurship • Lack of a specific city-policy on the regional level Threats • The new government leaving more area policy up to the municipalities • Competition between the municipalities • Political shortsightedness and alliances with local developers • Ruling by giving dispensation and exemptions because plans are not flexible enough • Turning into dormitory towns for Oslo

Questions that should be explored further: 

Working locally to attract business in an international market

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Regional policy to differentiate business development between municipalities

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Incentives to encourage business development

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Using traditional knowledge/skills in the area in new ways

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Creating visions for development

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How to develop a culture for entrepreneurship

 Creative ways to use infrastructure investments to promote business development

Relevance to our LAP: 

Through exploring business attraction further I think we have linked the area part of our county master plan more tightly to the other objectives in the county master plan, like economic growth. This might make the LAP more “sellable” to groups outside the planning offices, and suggest incorporating some more concrete activities in our plan. In some ways this is close to the core of what we want to achieve, encouraging the development that we DO want, and rejecting what we don’t, and finding the tools for doing this.

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The challenge is communicating, using and further developing our county master plan as a functional tool for helping the municipalities to move in a direction that is economically, socially and environmentally sustainable in the long run, instead of another useless set of regulation that stops them evolving.

3. MAIN CONCLUSIONS AND FURTHER PERSPECTIVES 3.1 Conclusions UseAct Partners gathered in Viladecans for the Second Bilateral/Trilateral meeting tried to identify tools and approaches to get “right use” (and “right quality”) of developments, with particular (but not exclusive) attention to attraction of businesses. During the debate, following common conclusions have emerged. Promoting right use and right developments, is often a fundamental challenge for “regional” (or of “broader scale”) institutions, that dealt with small municipality not always ready to face the issue individually. The need to develop integrated and inter-municipal plans has cleary emerged, togheter with the necessity to support smaller institutions to adopt them. Know-hows, self- assessment of development potentials (e.g. trough benchmarks or SWOT Analysis) and advanced appraisal procedures for projects, togheter with the capability to propose visions and predictability should be needed. Howevere, the technical component of public administration is not always skilled or strong enough to propose and appraise strong visions and projects, and to promote sufficient pubic debate on quality, able to by-pass the often short-term oriented action of politicians. A short list of problems and possible solutions emerged from the meeting are provided in table 1 Tab. 1: promoting “right use” and “rignt quality” in development: problems /tools/ local evidence

Problem

Tool/solution

Focused by

Not sufficient skills in PA and ability to appraise projects

Developing skills and knowhows , also trough programs by other authorities (e.g. regional level) Promoting common approaches among small-scale authorities Developing participative frameworks about quality (to sensitize politicians as well) Reinforcing technical role of PA and participation Social awareness on application

Ostfold, Viladecans

Providing “visions” and “predictability”; coupling rules with “financial tools”

Ostfold, Viladecans

Low interaction between (small) municipalities Not shared focus and awareness on “targets” Not sufficient awareness on “quality” by politicians (short term visión) Low degree of planning rule enforcement Enhancing interest of investors for quality-oriented schemes

Baia Mare, Ostfold Ostfold, (Viladecans)

Ostfold, Baia Mare Ostfold

3.2 Work in progress Partners, at the end of the meeting, concluded that it is important, also for activites related to the UseAct project, improving strategic approaches towards business attraction and in general “valuable” uses, working with SWOT analysis and other evaluation tools. Many of them (Viladecans, Ostfold, and Baia Mare) affirmed that the issue is rather relavant forheir LAP implementation

SECOND USEACT BILATERAL MEETING Meeting Venue: Viladecans Business Park BAIA MARE METROPOLITAN AREA|ØSTFOLD|VILADECANS DIFFERENTIATING INTERVENTIONS (RESIDENTIAL/ECONOMIC ACTIVITY): REAL ESTATE DEVELOPMENT ACTIVITY PROGRAM th

June 2014/ Meeting Point: Lobby of the Sidorme Hotel 8.45

9.00 – Gaetano Mollura, Lead Partner, The targets of Bilateral Meeting 9.15 – Vittorio Torbianelli, Lead Expert, How to attract business after the economic downturn? Host city partner contribution: 9.30 Enric Serra, City Council of Viladecans – Host city partner Learning from unsucceed proposals: The Aerospatial Park in Viladecans. The Spanish context/Contribution on the theme: 9.50 - Prof. Enric Batlle PhD Arch.CV The influence of the structure of the system of open spaces in the transformation of urban environments (innovation and knowledge activities) 10.10 Discussion with all participants

10.30 Coffee Break Partners contribution: 10.50 Marius Ecea, Baia Mare Metropolitan area association

11.05 Linda Duffy, Østfold County Council 11.20 Discussion with all participants 11.30 Workshop/1 – Comparing the strategies of partner cities to attract business

13.00 Lunch 14.00 Capitalization of the B/T meeting results, identifying the main topics and suggestions 14.40 Workshop/2 – How could we link the outcomes of the meeting with the Local Action Plans

15.10 coffee break 15.30 Workshop/3: reporting the meeting to the USEAct Community 16.45 Conclusions : How to valorize the meetings results

17.30 End of the second BT meeting .

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