This newsletter was sent on 26 July 2018. The original version is available here. You can subscribe here.
Editorial
The partnerships of Housing, Circular Economy and Jobs & Skills launched today a Public Feedback on their Draft Action Plan
The Public Feedback is an informal consultation that lasts for six weeks. It includes a Draft Action Plan (or a Consultation paper) that present a series of actions. These actions propose concrete solutions to tackle issues and bottlenecks identified by the members of a Partnership.
All stakeholders, individuals or organisations, are invited to take a quick survey to contribute and share their expertise and views to consolidate these proposed actions. The surveys can be answered anonymously. Results will enrich the final draft actions to be later approved by the Member States during the Directors-General on Urban Matters meeting (DGUM).
The Public Feedback on Housing, Circular Economy (Part II) and Jobs & Skills will remain open until the 4 September. The links are available below:
Housing: Consultation Paper and draft actions;
Circular Economy: Draft Action Plan and draft actions.
Jobs & Skills: Draft Action Plan and draft actions.
There are now three weeks ahead to contribute to the Public Feedback on Climate Adaptation (until 17 August, also available in Italian) and two weeks ahead to the Public Feedback on Public Procurement (5 August).
To stay tuned for news and updates related to the Urban Agenda for the EU, make sure to follow us on Twitter and to subscribe to the newsletter!
The Communication Team
News
European Week of Regions and Cities 2018: registration is open
The biggest event on urban and regional policy in Europe is coming up! Registration for the European Week of Regions and Cities, organised from 8 to 11 October 2018 in Brussels, is now open.
The Urban Agenda for the EU will be present in an Urban Corner in the exhibition area during the entire duration of the event. Bringing together the urban networks and programmes EUROCITIES, URBACT, Urban Innovative Actions, and URBIS, the Urban Corner will enable networking and exchange activities on the Urban Agenda for the EU priority themes and more. Concrete information on the Urban Corner programme will follow throughout summer.
Beyond the activities at the Urban Corner, the Urban Agenda for the EU will feature in the EWRC’s programme in various ways: On 10 October, the Air Quality Partnership will showcase its main achievements in a workshop. On the same day, another workshop will shed light on the progress of the Urban Agenda for the EU and will announce the winners of the Urban Innovative Actions’ third call.
Consult the full programme and register to your favourite sessions here!
Interview with Hans Verdonk, Co-coordinator of the Partnership on Jobs and Skills in the Local Economy
Hans Verdonk is the Co-coordinator of the Partnership on Jobs and Skills in the Local Economy (together with the city of Jelgava and Romania) and the EU representative for the city of Rotterdam. Veerle Smit from Ecorys Spain interviewed him on behalf of the Technical Secretariat of the Urban Agenda for the EU during the Partnership meeting in Porto in May 2018.
Good practices
Solving problems on ground - Riga, Latvia
Housing policy in Latvia is one of the most liberal kinds. Its agenda in Latvia is to finish the process of housing privatization, facilitation of energy efficiency, and most recent is to promote rental housing in the municipalities. Housing policy is to a large extent a duty of the State level Ministry of Economy officials; they decide the priorities and major sources of finance. There are more passive players on the state level as well, such as Ministry of Justice. The latter state player is responsible for Court System and all legal processes which are related to property claims and conflicts. Also, the funding which is currently available—EU structural funds for energy efficiency retrofits—are managed by state agency “Investment and development Agency”.
Mobilizing vacant private dwellings towards the affordable rental market “Borsa de Lloguer & Hàbitat 3” - Barcelona, Spain
These two initiatives allow for the mobilization of vacant private housing units towards affordable rental housing. Borsa de Lloguer is a mediation program by which the City offers landlords a rental income insurance, a residential multi-risk insurance, as well as support to make renovations in their units in exchange for rent caps for a certain period of time. Hàbitat 3 is a non-profit organization that manages rental units whose use has been temporarily signed over to the City in exchange for certain upgrades. Beneficiaries should be registered as Applicants of Social Housing in Barcelona Municipality which involve criteria related with income limitations or viability and sustainability of households’ applicants among others.
Calls
Call for interest: hosting and co-organising the 4th CITIES FORUM 2019
LAST MONTH TO APPLY: The 4th edition of the CITIES Forum will take place at the end of 2019 and will welcome 500-600 participants during 1.5 days. Cities interested in hosting and co-organising the CITIES FORUM together with the European Commission are invited to express their interest before 27 August 2018.
Call for applications: Access City Award
The Access City Award recognises and celebrates a city's willingness, ability and efforts to become more accessible, in order to guarantee equal access to fundamental rights; improve the quality of life of its population and ensure that everybody – regardless of age, mobility or ability – has equal access to all the resources and pleasures cities have to offer. Deadline for applications is 16 September 2018.
Showcase your efforts in the Air Quality Code of Good Practices!
The Urban Partnership on Air Quality main objective is to improve air quality in cities and bring the ‘healthy city’ higher on the local, national and EU agendas as part of the Urban Agenda. As part of their work, the Partnership is developing a Code of Good Practices that aims to provide guidance and inspiration to cities drafting and implementing air quality plans.
- Tagy
- public procurement Spain riga Latvia Barcelona housing Action Plan Circular Economy Air Quality Cities Forum good practices Climate Adaptation Eurocities Public Feedback European Week of Regions and Cities call for applications URBACT Urban Innovative Actions call for interest Hans Verdonk Jobs & Skills URBIS Access City Award Code of Good Practices