A programme to support small citizens' initiatives to improve common spaces
Project encourages the residents of Kočevje to actively improve their public spaces and to support small local actions that improve their surroundings and benefit wider community. In 2021, we piloted the project with central city local community group only, and in 2022 we transferred the project to all local communities of our municipality. The actions are proposed and carried out by individuals through a working campaign, and the municipality provides the material costs up to €800 per action.
Local
Slovenia
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It addresses urban-rural linkages
It refers to other types of transformations (soft investment)
No
No
Yes
2022-10-31
As a representative of an organisation
Name of the organisation(s): Municipality of Kočevje Type of organisation: Public authority (European/national/regional/local) First name of representative: Tanja Last name of representative: Štajdohar Gender: Female Nationality: Slovenia Function: senior consultant for spatial planning Address (country of permanent residence for individuals or address of the organisation)<br/>Street and number: Ljubljanska cesta 26 Town: Kočevje Postal code: 1330 Country: Slovenia Direct Tel:+38618938251 E-mail:tanja.stajdohar@kocevje.si Website:https://www.kocevje.si/
With the Kočevje Action project, we encourage people in Kočevje to clean up the corners of their neighbourhood they know best and would like to use together with their neighbours. The call was first launched last year for the area of the city Kočevje, and this year it has been extended to the whole municipality. Applications were collected from 1 March to 29 April and the deadline for the actions was 31 Oct.
The ‘’Kočevje actions’’ project is based on and inspired by the ‘’Outside’’ project, which has been successfully implemented in the Municipality of Ljubljana since 2019. It has also attracted a lot of interest in Kočevje, where last year's pilot project carried out nine actions led by residents in Kočevje, such as the renovation of benches and other equipment, greening of spaces around blocks of flats, planting trees, clearing abandoned and littered area into a space for sports, play and socialising.
Kočevje is the biggest municipality in Slovenia and has a high level of dispersed settlements with low density. Therefore the main novelty of this year's project was the expansion of the whole municipality area, and the key objective is to actively connect and involve people in changing their common open spaces or bring the neighbourhood together with the event(s). 6,000 euros have been provided for the project, and each project could receive up to 800 euros to cover material costs. In addition to covering material costs, the Municipality of Kočevje, together with the local communities, also provides mentoring and implementation support. The applications were evaluated by a panel and those that met the conditions were supported until the funds were used up.
The key criteria are that the project contributes as much as possible to the improvement of the shared public space in the long term, has an established team of people who will maintain the improvements and actively involves citizens in changing the public open spaces they use in their neighbourhood.
belonging
neighbourhood
community project
working actions
self-initiative
An initiative that comes from the sincere desire and need of the people, the users who live there, and is not "imposed" from the top down, but is all the more influential and sustainable in time and space because of this self-initiative.
A location that is their own, familiar, close, belongs to the local population, and is therefore easily and easily accessible, has a very important aesthetic and programmatic impact on the quality of living.
The existence of a community that is behind the project and will take care of this adopted space in the future, and has a maintenance plan, motivation, and willingness to keep it tidy on its own, without additional investment from the municipality.
The potential for revitalizing a community, a neighborhood, or the development of a site that lies behind any such initiative is enormous and can give birth to the life engine of a place and transform it from passive and derelict to inclusive, vibrant, and well-kept, thanks to the possibility of actually influencing change and respecting the importance of contributing.
During the project, regular communication is established between the representative of the initiative and the project manager at the municipality, the relationship is informal and sincere, and in the future it contributes to the more successful cooperation of the small/village communities with the municipality representatives, thus reducing alienation from the local leadership.
Neighbourhood residents or villagers are only guided in the design of common open spaces to the extent that the existing urban design of public spaces is an example of transformation. They are encouraged to use wood for the construction of furnishings, in a way that is already used elsewhere and which, in our previous experience, is durable and resistant to vandalism and frequent use.
The initiators themselves propose the design of the space, the desired furnishings, the colours, and the choice of materials. If these wishes are not in line with the image of the municipality we are creating, we guide them towards this path. If they need and want help with the transformation, the design of the space or other parts of the renovation, we are here to help, to offer suggestions or just to support them.
Most of the time, they already have their own ideas for landscaping, which so far have been very much in line with the approaches to public green spaces in our municipality.
It is exemplary that people are allowed relative freedom to carry out a project, whether renovation, landscaping or planting. In doing so, they create space according to their own expectations and experience and learn for themselves the difference between gardening and landscaping shared communal public space. In this way, they are all part of the management of the commons and translate their idea of the look and function of the common into space, which they continue to care for together with their neighbours.
The project aims to involve absolutely all residents who wish to have an impact and contribute to the public space that is ours, and it is only fair that we can all contribute the best we can. Thus, with the project, we are looking for a way past the bureaucracy of the system, by giving direct funding to buy materials, tools, and gadgets to make and/or renovate the space. Residents who may be excluded for various reasons from the group active in a particular local community (formal local government group) can be engaged in this project. Much smaller, purely informal, and mixed-generation groups of people who already use or would like to use the community space in some way and consequently take care of it themselves can be brought together in this project.
When the project is approved, the initiative representative receives a direct payment receipt for the purchase/order of the materials from the suppliers or the shop, which is paid by the municipality, they simply take over the materials and prove their consumption by carrying out activities/building/producing. The main point is that it is a simple implementation from idea to realization, without complicated application forms and bureaucratic reporting. This way, all residents still have the will to cooperate with the municipality, because we do the necessary legal bureaucracy for them.
We also help our residents by connecting with local suppliers and trying to use the most locally available material - wood. The project has also been adopted by local businesses, who are actively contributing to its success.
The offered funds may be small, but they can make a big difference, especially psychologically and socially, by contributing their own work. Because of the responsiveness and support of the municipality, the inhabitants usually invest some money or materials themselves to make their idea of transforming a better, bigger success. They can also apply for campaigns several years in a row to build on their idea.
The gain is multiplicable; residents acquire or adopt land free of charge for use, management, and maintenance, where they have relative freedom to improve and carry out activities. The community is brought together and usually reinforced, building the program in the micro-location, i.e. revitalizing the site or area, which in turn contributes to a safe, pleasant environment to live in and visit. The local community in turn gains a user-specific corner, which will ensure less vandalism, regular maintenance of open green spaces, and so-called "street control", which will educate residents and by-passers to care for the common good.
Such projects build a sense of belonging for the residents and an identity of place for the location, which is essential for vital neighborhoods. In this way, residents are actively involved in the life of the city/town, sensitive to it, and willing to contribute both with ideas and with work, knowing from experience that together we build a community where we contribute and receive, and with the contribution of the good the community grows and functions well and builds a transparent reciprocal relationship with the local authority. As a result, there are more opportunities for successful redevelopment of the area, because residents are active stakeholders in the participatory design process. Municipal investments, therefore, do not have a purpose in themselves, but respond more tangibly to the needs of users, as they are empowered to identify and articulate them.
Stakeholders were engaged mostly on a local level, for this is a project intended for small local groups of residents. Their inputs were the idea, design, implementation, and maintenance of the project. Only funding was from the municipality, and technical and design-wise help when needed. Otherwise, these are the projects of and for the people.
National-wise there was some engagement because we first learned about the project from the municipality of Ljubljana, they do it a bit differently, with an intermediate link in the form of a cooperative that leads the whole project. The municipality only grants the funds but has no contact with the implementation, people, image, or functioning of the projects themselves.
Our good practice has already been disseminated in the country, there has already been one dissemination meeting with the municipality of Slovenska Bistrica, which also wants to develop this practice. The two municipalities, which are already implementing it in different ways, have thus been able to exchange good and bad experiences, from which we have all learned and on which we will improve the project in the coming year.
The project involved the contributions of coworkers from the social sciences, management, and spatial sciences. We worked together during work time, by talking to each other and in working meetings when preparing the annual call for proposals. Cooperation is also essential during the evaluation of the applications received when each of us assesses the feasibility of the action and the contribution it makes to the space and the community from his/her own point of view and profession.
The basic project for Ljubljana first and then for us was prepared by the Institute for Spatial Policies, which brings together architects, landscape architects, and the fields of sociology and social sciences. During the implementation of the Sustainable Urban Regeneration project, where the Institute was the project promoter, this was part of the proposed action plan, which we developed with local communities and immediately started to implement. We adapted it to our city and the scale of our workforce, using local knowledge and in cooperation with the local civic initiative, which is often the generator of the various initiatives in this project.
The projects that are implemented then depend on the skills, the way of seeing the world, and the approach of the inhabitants who plan and implement them. We want to avoid the bureaucratic approach and the mindset of just using resources for something along the lowest line of resistance, and cultivate a broad-thinking approach of working actions for the community that solve a problem from multiple perspectives, and this is precisely the added value of a project that has a multidisciplinary basis of call and implementation among residents in practice.
The Kočevje Actions project is an inclusive project process with the aim of building a sense of belonging, a spirit of place, and community building. Over the course of two years and 14 projects, many urban and village sites have been regenerated. The regeneration was based on the situation of the local demography, which is mostly ageing, and where the young force needs to be motivated to engage and socialise in the ''old'', traditional non-digital way. It is the older people who have reported the actions and sometimes successfully attracted and involved the youth of the neighbourhood. Intergenerational networking in this way is also something we want to revive, to pass on craft skills from the elderly to the young, to reconnect with handicrafts, local materials and everything typical of our area.
Bringing back a sense of belonging is a goal we work on through various projects, because of the resulting relationship with the space and the programme in it. People who contribute in one way or another to the community and the place, like to take care of it, are part of the place and are caring and productive. This is something that we lack because of the history of municipal government, which has been distinctly top-down, and which has given people the expectation that everything comes from the authorities, that it is one-sided and not tailored to the users, and that in any case, they have no influence on what happens in their town.
Given the positive reactions, the successful completion of the actions and the increasing interest in applications, we can assume that this project has a very positive impact on the inhabitants and they the space.
The majority of the approach that municipalities have and have had to such projects for local communities is usually through the initiatives of a formally organised local community, which meets regularly, collects the initiatives of all those who attend the meetings, and then passes the proposals on to the municipality's leadership, which decides whether or not to support the proposals. If you are not an active member of your local community, your voice will not be heard and your needs will never be recognized.
Moreover, the initiatives of local communities are mostly for road renovations or additional public lighting, not for community spaces. Action projects are more about people wanting to make things better in shared green spaces that are used by people and not by cars.
This is why the project of these small actions is special because it allows even very small groups of people to come together and put their needs into an idea that they can implement themselves, according to their own criteria, expectations, and abilities.
The innovation lies in the idea of handing over responsibility, as well as some planning and design, directly to the users, the citizens, trusting them in this work and thus strengthening the sense of belonging and awareness.
The Small Actions process starts with a call for proposals from the municipality, which sets out the timeline, criteria, and conditions for applying. The call is launched in early spring to leave as much time as possible during the year to realize the work. The criteria are also the basis for scoring, and we aim to support as many actions as possible, i.e. to budget enough funds to support as many projects as possible. The deadline for action is the end of October.
After the evaluation and the confirmation notices have been issued, we meet the organisers on site or by phone. The description of the action is always clear from the application form, the initiators then get offers for materials from shops or distributors, the municipality issues orders for everything needed, the materials are collected by the villagers and they start the action as they agree among themselves.
If they need advice or guidance, we are there for them all the time. For example, it is often necessary to give guidance on the design of urban equipment that is present in our area, or the design of content for an information board, etc.
The companies will invoice the municipality directly for the material they have collected, and we will take a look at the site, while the initiators take photos of the process and usually informally report on what happened during the action, who was involved, how they had a good time, what other activities the project entailed, and so on.
Practically all the steps of the practice are transferable to other communities in the country and beyond, both the call itself, the implementation steps, and also the lessons we have learnt in the course of the implementation for the limitations of the call and the evaluation and exclusion criteria.
With this project we wanted to address the great challenge we have in Kočevje, a city of immigrants without a strong common identity, so belonging and identity of place and community are our biggest challenges.
This still needs to be built, and all this is being built intensively through self-initiated work actions, in the common care for the space that is shared, in the feeling that the land outside your plot where you live is also indirectly a little bit yours because you influence it and it is right to do this for the good of the community.
Also, when carrying out actions, work is being done on the transmission of traditional skills from the elderly to the young, and the young are consequently being educated about the social dynamics of the village or neighborhood, and are being taught social and social responsibility and empathy, both towards people and towards the environment in which we live.
By doing their own work of tidying up small community corners, they improve the living environment and the state of urban nature, to which the caretakers afterward are always more caring and protective. This also gives adults and children more opportunities to socialize, play, and play sports outside, in a healthy open environment.
In fact, it is difficult to summarise all the positive effects of these actions, but the main one is certainly the revitalization of the countryside, local communities, and thus of the pubic space.
