Brownfield leadership in Central European Cities with particular emphasis on the Czech Republic

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Brownfield leadershipin Central European
Cities(with particular emphasis on the Czech
Republic)

• Jirina Jackson
• IURS Institut pro udritelný rozvoj sídel o.s.
• Tel [phone], jjackson_at_volny.cz

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About IURS

• Non-profit advocacy, research and project
  implementation organization
• Working to forward sustainable development
  practices
• Fosters broad coalitions that enhance the
  competitiveness of accessible city centre
  development and redevelopment (retail,
  residential, and other) relative to out-of-town
  greenfield developments, which tend to be
  sprawling, car-based, and wasteful of resources
  that undermine city centre vitality 
• Strongly focused on issues of underused urban
  land and the containment of sprawl in Czech
  Republic, Poland, Slovakia and Hungary

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Presentation outline

• Historical background and beliefs the
  preponderance of CEC brownfields
• Barriers to brownfield reuse in the CEC
• Musts - for effective solutions
• Externalities for solutions to succeed
• Different horses for courses
• Help and SOS brownfields packages
• Advantages of brownfields reuse

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CEC brownfields a massive legacy

• Consequences of previous economic regime
• Land next to no market value
• Cost of capital not factored in
• Centrally planned economy was inflexible and
  demanded over-scaled (uneconomic) real estate
  provisions for its industrialization efforts
• CEC cities left with an abnormal portion (25-35)
  of industrial land use compared to western
  countries
• Industrial sites in city-central locations
• Factories often build on edge of existing
  settlements, or old industry on city edge was
  enlarged. Pre-cast concrete housing estates
  build later beyond these factories.
• Return of market economy?factories became
  uncompetitive
• Similar effects with army, rail, institutional
  and agricultural sites
• Army size drastically cut large part of military
  real estate vacant
• Rail use decreased real estate seriously
  under-invested for years
• Institutional provision (hospitals, schools,
  prison ect.) are being rationalized
• A large number of agricultural brownfield sites
  around the countrysideremnants of agricultural
  collectivisation

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Barriers to brownfields reuse

• Insufficient
• know-how and education
• coordination
• motivation
• administrative, fiscal and legal tools
• strategies
• policies
• data

All this prevents effectively reusing brownfields
and joining vacant land sustainability
discussion
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Achiving an effective solution

• Brownfields have strong spatial, economic, social
  and
• environmental consequences,
• therefore their solutions need to be
• cross-institutional, cross-departmental,
  cross-professional
• To move a subject of such a complexity, it is
  necessary for it to become one of
• national, regional and local priorities
• Without such an approach, subject may be
  nibbled, but not
• solved and funds and efforts directed into it may
  be wasted

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Where is a will, there is a way
An example of the Czech government approach to an
another cross subject - PFI
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MUSTS - know-how, education, coordination and
motivation

• Increase understanding of the scope of the
  brownfield problem, and of its financial and
  social implications at all levels
• Focus political commitment to brownfield reuse in
  all levels
• Instigate a need for an overall brownfield
  strategy mainly at the national level, but also
  at lower levels
• Practise cooperation and knowledge-transfer among
  disciplines, institutions, and departments within
  institutions
• Improve know-how across the full range of
  potential brownfield stakeholders, including
  private investors, local authorities,
  regions,NGOs and ministries
• Introduce educational products above the
  technical issues of brownfields

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MUSTS - tools, policies, strategies

• Prepare national (and also regional and local)
  policy, strategy, analytic tools and principles
  for prioritising brown sites investments
• Compile a unified registry of sites and their
  critical parameters
• Introduce benchmarking of the technical and other
  costs and procedures against international best
  practices
• Improve transparency and enforcement in the legal
  system in several areas that impinge on
  brownfields planning, use, purchase
• Legislate tools for land assembly
• Provide flexible planning tools
• Offer fiscal instruments and incentives
• Insure of means to cap environmental liabilities
• Provide sufficiently discriminating cleanup
  standards

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HOWEVER- broader market milieu

• Even with adequate knowledge, coordination,
  technical tools
• and policies, brownfield rehabilitation on a
  sufficient scale is
• unlikely unless the following prevails
• A vibrant expanding market
• Local public sector priming finance (for the
  less well located and heavily damaged sites, and
  to match private sector or EU funding even for
  the best sites)
• Greater restrictions on the ready availability of
  greenfield sites. ( removal of all greenfield
  subsidies)

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Four kinds of site
(horses for courses)
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SOS Brownfields survival kit

• For information to be useful to your
  stakeholders it needs to be in their
• local language
  (lack of language
  skills)
• There exists very little brownfields information
  in local languages and what
• there exists is usually related narrowly to
  technical issues of land clearance
• General Brownfield subject information is
  substantially missing. In CZ there are
• no handbooks or textbooks
• no University courses or education packages for
  further education
• no guidelines how to approach the subject and not
  enough expertise create them
• no guidelines or information packages from
  governmental institutions
• next to no tools, or those who yet understand how
  and why to create them
• Need are
• Stakeholders Handbook, Courses teaching the
  policy makers and teachers,
• Stakeholders courses, University courses,
  textbooks and translations of key
• papers, subject related websites
  cross-referenced to EU and other brownfield
• information sources, generic products to be
  adapted to local languages, more
• exchange within CEC, more know-how transfer and

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Advantages to reuse

• Removes unproductive holes in the local urban
  fabric
  (economic sustainability)
• Catalyst to revitalization of the entire local
  area
• 
  (social sustainability)
• Increased local employment, local economic
  activity and local tax base in the area
  
• 
  (economic sustainability)
• Public health and protection of local environment
  
• 
  (environmental sustainability)
• Reduced development pressure on greenfields
• (environmental, economic and social
  sustainability)

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Thank you for your attentionJirina JacksonTel
420 (602) 370 176 jjackson_at_volny.cz