BALKAN IN DE POLDER. Naar organische gebiedsontwikkeling in Nederland? Ellen Holleman, Robert-Jan de Kort en Sabrina Lindemann (red.

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1 BALKAN IN DE POLDER Naar organische gebiedsontwikkeling in Nederland? Ellen Holleman, Robert-Jan de Kort en Sabrina Lindemann (red.) 1

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3 BALKAN IN DE POLDER Naar organische gebiedsontwikkeling in Nederland? Ellen Holleman, Robert-Jan de Kort en Sabrina Lindemann (red.) 3

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5 INHOUD Introductie Play the City Area development in a pressure cooker Floor Tinga The case of Co-PLAN and POLIS University Besnik Aliaj Five conditions for organic area development in the Netherlands Besnik Aliaj & Dritan Shutina A seed, some soil and the sun A conversation on the organic in area development Ellen Holleman & Robert-Jan de Kort Balkan en polder Su Tomesen De kracht van omgekeerde ontwikkelingshulp Saskia Ruijsink Stad, spel, media Spelenderwijs eigenaar worden van je stad Michiel de Lange Van participatie naar zelforganisatie Over het verschuivende initiatief voor ruimtelijke ontwikkeling Beitske Boonstra Bankieren in de wijk: creatief en waardevast Ellen Holleman De ontwikkelkracht van tijdelijk (ruimte)gebruik Organische gebiedsontwikkeling is allang begonnen Sabrina Lindemann & Iris Schutten Reflectie David Hamers Nawoord Christine Lindo Balkan en polder: fotobijschriften Personalia Colofon

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7 INTRODUCTIE Recent zond de VPRO de documentairereeks Nederland van boven uit. De serie laat, veelal vanuit een helikopter, zien hoe Nederland functioneert. Ons land leent zich daar geweldig voor. Het is namelijk dezelfde helikopterview van waaruit Nederland de afgelopen eeuwen is ontwikkeld. Alles is gedegen van bovenaf gepland en gestructureerd. Aan de hand van thema s als handel, wonen en vrije tijd ziet de kijker Nederland als een soepel lopend uurwerk. Wat onzichtbaar blijft is de hoogst onzekere situatie van toekomstige ontwikkelingen van Nederland en van de factoren die onze steden en dorpen vormen. Vanuit de helikopter is niet te zien dat de bouwrijp gemaakte velden voorlopig niet volgebouwd zullen worden of hoe commerciële gebieden zijn stilgevallen door onzekerheid over toekomstige ontwikkelingen. Neem de Binckhorst in Den Haag. Een helikopterview leidde ertoe dat dit bedrijventerrein in 2005 werd bestempeld als toekomstig woongebied. Het gebied ligt zo centraal dat het ideaal leek om woongebied te worden. De huidige bestemming als bedrijventerrein kan veel beter naar een perifere locatie verplaatst worden, zo was de redenering. Zonder inbreng van de huidige gebruikers en bewoners van het gebied werden grootse plannen gemaakt. Dit leidde tot grote verontwaardiging. De economische crisis legde bijna alle grote ontwikkelingen in de Binckhorst stil en het ziet er niet naar uit dat de functionele reshuffle in de nabije toekomst tot stand gaat komen. Hetzelfde geldt voor talloze gebieden in Nederland. Een realiteit die vraagt om een andere manier van plannen. Maar hoe? Nederland van boven krijgt diepte als geschakeld wordt tussen het indrukwekkende helikopterstandpunt en het alledaagse maaiveld. Hier wordt de discrepantie tussen deze twee standpunten zichtbaar, maar ook de relevantie van de wisselwerking tussen top-down en bottom-up. Zo blijkt dat ogenschijnlijke chaos controleerbaar is en dat schijnbare controleerbaarheid altijd bedreigd kan worden. In een auto lijkt de file eindeloos. Vanuit de helikopter is te zien hoe files eigenlijk altijd meevallen. Andersom blijken de vanuit de helikopter bezien strakke en sterke graswallen om de oliesilo s in het Rotterdamse havengebied ondermijnd te worden door de holen die konijnen erin graven. Een jager is daarom continu bezig om de konijnen uit te roeien. Binnen gebiedsontwikkeling is het gecombineerd werken vanuit het helikopterstandpunt en vanaf het maaiveld minder vanzelfsprekend. Het is vaak het één of het ander. In Nederland bestaat, mede door economische voorspoed, een sterke cultuur van plannen van bovenaf. De huidige economische situatie heeft ertoe geleid dat beleidsmakers genoodzaakt zijn de helikopter in het geheel te laten staan om vanaf het maaiveld nieuwe, meer kleinschalige, gebiedsontwikkelingen 7

8 in gang te zetten. Dit gebeurt onder de noemer organische gebiedsontwikkeling, oftewel stedelijke transformatie zonder eindbeeld. Dit wordt opgevat als een vorm van ontwikkelen waarin kleine stappen, bestaande initiatieven, identiteit, onzekerheid en het onverwachte leidend zijn. Organische gebiedsontwikkeling levert naar men hoopt een spontane stad met veel informele activiteit en een diversiteit aan bebouwing op. Maar vooral wordt het initiatief neergelegd bij de gebruikers van het gebied. Als deze benadering wordt doorgezet, betekent dit een paradigmaverschuiving voor de Nederlandse planningscultuur. Zover is het echter nog lang niet. De ontwikkelingsenergie die nu wordt gevraagd van particulieren of kleinere partijen, is onbekend terrein voor de meeste gemeenten. Daarbij, zijn Nederlandse planningsprofessionals wel klaar voor het loslaten van eindbeelden? Is het wel denkbaar dat we bottom-up-ontwikkelingen toelaten en pas in tweede instantie gaan plannen en structureren? Is het mogelijk om voor organische gebiedsontwikkeling in Nederland een ander antwoord te formuleren dan het negentiendeeeuwse model van stadsontwikkeling waarbij de overheid de infrastructuur aanlegt en de particuliere sector de kavels invult? Voor alles dient te worden opgemerkt dat organische gebiedsontwikkeling en andere nieuwe vormen van planning weliswaar voortkomen uit een directe, door de economische crisis ingegeven actualiteit, maar dat redenen voor de noodzaak ervan dieper liggen. Een nieuwe attitude met betrekking tot planning is daarmee niet enkel nodig om op korte termijn oplossingen te vinden voor acute problemen, maar vooral om een nieuw fundament te vormen voor een planningscultuur die kan omgaan met de opgave om onze steden af te stemmen op een veranderende (economische) wereld. In het licht van het denken over meer organische manieren om gebieden te ontwikkelen, vinden wij het relevant om de vraag te stellen hoe gebieden tegelijkertijd vanaf het maaiveld en vanuit de (spreekwoordelijke) helikopter kunnen worden ontwikkeld. Een deel van het antwoord op die vraag vonden wij door over de eigen landsgrens heen te kijken naar plekken die diametraal tegenover Nederland lijken te staan: regio s waar financiering niet vanzelfsprekend beschikbaar en zelforganisatie een noodzaak is. Gebieden waar een planningscultuur is ontstaan die omgaat met deze aspecten en die erin slaagt enige orde aan te brengen in de ogenschijnlijke chaos, zonder de illusie te hebben alles te kunnen sturen. Een planningscultuur die in staat is om het bestaande op waarde te schatten, voort te bouwen op kleinschalige initiatieven en om strategische visie te vertalen in lokaal ondersteunde en gefinancierde en actieplannen. Wij hebben tijdens de studiereis What s up what s down. Cultural catalysts in Urban Space van het Fonds BKVB in 2010 zo n plek bezocht: Albanië. Sinds de omwenteling van het land begin jaren negentig is de non-gouvernementele organisatie Co-PLAN de drijvende kracht achter de hervorming van de Albanese planningscultuur. Deze hervorming was nodig om de talrijke spontaan ontstane illegale stadsdelen te structureren tot meer formele onderdelen van de stad. Co-PLAN is opgericht met behulp van Nederlandse middelen, kennis en expertise, waarmee dus de polder zijn intrede deed in de Balkan. De behendigheid 8

9 van Co-PLAN zit m vooral in de manier waarop de organisatie zowel bottom-up als top-down opereert en daarmee tegelijkertijd in de helikopter zit en tussen de gebouwen staat. Co-PLAN combineerde onze kennis van (top-down)gebiedsontwikkeling met een geheel eigen bottom-up-aanpak, wat leidde tot een rijke en effectieve werkwijze. De planningscultuur in Albanië heeft zich de laatste twee decennia van anarchie naar een (op zijn minst) evenwichtiger balans tussen private energie en publieke sturing bewogen. In Nederland is een omgekeerde tendens waarneembaar, namelijk een waarbij de overheid en de planners, noodgedwongen, met de gedachte spelen om bij gebiedsontwikkeling de teugels te laten vieren ten faveure van private initiatieven. Beide planningspraktijken bewegen derhalve naar elkaar toe en vinden daardoor ergens een vruchtbaar equilibrium. De vraag hoe dit equilibrium in elkaar steekt, is zowel voor de Albanese als de Nederlandse praktijk relevant. Waar de koerswijziging van de ruimtelijke ordening in Nederland vraagt om een cultuurverandering, daar werken Besnik Aliaj en Dritan Shutina, de oprichters van Co-PLAN, al twintig jaar aan de progressieve hervorming van de ruimtelijke ordening van hun land. Hun mindset gaat uit van het vernieuwen van rollen en posities binnen hun beroepspraktijk. Aliaj en Shutina leken ons daarom de aangewezen deskundigen om de Nederlandse situatie te beschouwen en een advies te formuleren omtrent de noodzakelijke koerswijziging van de ruimtelijke ordening, als ware het omgekeerde ontwikkelingshulp: laat nu dus de Balkan zijn intrede doen in de polder. Begin oktober 2011 nodigden wij Besnik Aliaj en Dritan Shutina uit in Den Haag voor een driedaagse expertmeeting met de titel Organische gebiedsontwikkeling: Balkan in de Polder?. Na de excursies en gesprekken reflecteerden Aliaj en Shutina met verscheidene betrokkenen op de Nederlandse situatie. Speciaal voor een intensieve en actieve uitwisseling van kennis ontwikkelde onderzoeker Ekim Tan het spel Play the City: Binckhorst versus Balkan. Hiervoor kwamen vele spelers bijeen rondom een grote maquette van het gebied en werden twee scenario s voor gebiedsontwikkeling in de Binckhorst uitgespeeld. Tot slot stelden Aliaj en Shutina hun diagnose tijdens een speciale internationale editie van het Binckcafé, georganiseerd in samenwerking met Stroom Den Haag, middels vijf kernachtige statements over onder meer de rol van overheid, onderwijs en planners. In een uitvoerig interview gingen Aliaj en Shutina verder in op hun stellingname. De uitkomsten van de expertmeeting vormen de openingszet van dit cahier. Zowel het interview als de statements en het spel zijn in de Engelse taal opgenomen. In het tweede deel van dit cahier, dat Nederlandstalig is, reflecteert een aantal in Nederland werkzame professionals die vanuit verschillende disciplines bij gebiedsontwikkeling betrokken zijn op de door Aliaj en Shutina gestelde voorwaarden voor organische gebiedsontwikkeling. De auteurs formuleren hun persoonlijke antwoorden op de vraag of de voorwaarden hout snijden of juist wringen met de Nederlandse praktijk. De focus ligt vooral op de suggesties die de oprichters van Co-PLAN doen voor de rol van de overheid en de rol van planners ten aanzien van het accommoderen van private en meer kleinschalige 9

10 ontwikkelenergie. Kaderstellende onderwerpen die in relatie tot de statements nadere beschouwing verdienen zijn: internationale kennisdeling, zelforganisatie en alternatieve economieën. Meer concreet komen vragen aan de orde als: Hoe is kennis van internationale planningspraktijken te koppelen aan de opleiding van Nederlandse planners? Wie of wat staat een exponentiële groei van particulier initiatief in de gebiedsontwikkeling in de weg? Kunnen alternatieve economische modellen gebiedsontwikkeling aanwakkeren? Tevens komen twee onderwerpen uit de planningspraktijk aan bod. Tijdelijk gebruik en serious gaming zijn geen nieuwe onderwerpen, maar in het licht van dit cahier werpen ze relevante kwesties op. Hoe kan, beredeneerd vanuit reeds opgedane ervaring, tijdelijk (ruimte)gebruik worden tot een volwaardig middel om gebieden (mede) te ontwikkelen? Verschaft serious gaming, zoals bijvoorbeeld de Play the City games van Ekim Tan, de stedenbouwkundige een nieuwe rol als initiator/spelleider en is het een geschikt medium voor betrokkenen en externe experts? Waar de inzichten van de professionals een brug slaan tussen de blik van buiten en de Nederlandse praktijk, daar geven deze laatste onderwerpen aan dat organische gebiedsontwikkeling conform de voorwaarden van Co-PLAN, zij het gefragmenteerd, al kleine wortels heeft in de Nederlandse planningspraktijk. Deze worden benoemd, alsmede de manieren waarop deze wortels zouden moeten aantakken op meer formele structuren. De aangehaalde ervaringen werken daarom tegelijkertijd bemoedigend en aansporend. Dit cahier beoogt geenszins een volledig antwoord te geven op de vraag hoe organische gebiedsontwikkeling onderdeel kan worden van de Nederlandse planningscultuur. Daarvoor is deze vraag te omvattend en dienen de aangehaalde begrippen uitvoeriger uitgediept te worden. Deze publicatie vult een lacune in het debat over organische gebiedsontwikkeling door relevante buitenlandse experts te laten reflecteren op onze situatie en deze reflectie, of aanbeveling, als uitgangspunt te nemen voor verder debat, kennisontwikkeling en vooral: concrete acties. Werkgroep Balkan in de Polder Ellen Holleman ontwerper/beeldend kunstenaar; Robert-Jan de Kort architect; Tilmann Meyer-Faje beeldend kunstenaar; Sabrina Lindemann kunstenaar/ urban curator; Su Tomesen beeldend kunstenaar en regisseur; Edwin Verdurmen architect, cultureel ondernemer 10

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12 Videostills en fotografie Su Tomesen Play the City games provide a common interface for professionals, stakeholders and citizens. Carefully modeling interaction of engaged players and their powers, the games can provide real-time input for new plans, and evolve existing plans. Usual and unusual suspects of an urban design process, like entrepreneurs, active end users with plans as well as policy makers, designers, planners, housing corporations, developers and investors, are gathered to generate realistic future scenarios. By role playing and following simple rules adapted from reality, they evolve future scenarios. These are based on negotiating, collaborating as well as conflict. Play the City games are based on real urban questions. The game can simulate an urban block, network of public squares, a neighborhood, a city or an urban region. During the course of the game, players work toward different 3D solutions, meanwhile real governance rules frame the gameplay. Regular polls and voting help in raising the quality of different spatial solutions. Vote ranking is visible to everyone, giving a clear picture of what are the most and least valued solutions. Play the City: Binckhorst versus Balkan ontwikkeld door Ekim Tan, The Responsive City, Den Haag, 25/10/

13 PLAY THE CITY: AREA DEVELOPMENT IN A PRESSURE COOKER Floor Tinga We have ambitious plans for this location, says the Mayor of the Hague solemnly, as he gestures towards a giant model of the Binckhorst business park. What the precise details are, I don t know. I ll leave that to you. The Mayor is addressing a score of professionals who are in a position to determine the precise details of the future of de Binckhorst. What is more, the Mayor has been inspired by the organic area development of the Albanian capital, Tirana. There is only one drawback note to the fairytale that the politician is outlining: the money has run out. For a town council that is in dire financial straits, the creative abilities of those present are crucial. The Mayor is hopeful. He closes his speech with a smile: My advice to you is to build the Binckhorst using crowd funding and crowd building. You ve got five minutes to develop the Binckhorst up to and including PLAY THE BINCKHORST The situation described above is a short extract from the game Play the City, that was played on 25 October 2011 in the Binckhorst district of the Hague in the Netherlands. The game, developed by town planning researcher Ekim Tan, offers residents, leaders and other stakeholders in town planning a way of coming together in dialogue with each other. Inspired by the classic role playing game, all participants are appointed key functions from area planning. These vary from project developer, politician, small businessman, town planner, resident or activist. The model of the area functions as a game board on which the participants can test their plans in situ. Each game lasts five minutes, which is equivalent to one year of development. In short: it s environmental development in a pressure cooker. Play the City has been divided into two rounds specially for the session in the Binckhorst. The first round is devoted to organic area development following the Albanian model. This model has pretty loose reins when it comes to rules and regulations and organic development is central. The players have no restrictions except that they must be able to negotiate with each other. In the second round the roles are reversed and the Dutch situation leads. Green belt and sound pollution buffer zones are therefore prominent in the scale model in which the players wish to build their own living and work spaces. This game is an experiment aimed at finding out which qualities the different models have, but also what the drawbacks are. The Hague city council has expressed a wish to develop Binckhorst organically over the coming years, whilst at the same time they have plans for a big infrastructure project the Rotterdamsebaan link road. The conflict of interests between wanting to facilitate spontaneous initiatives on the one hand, and the completion of a large-scale infrastructure project on the other seems worth exploring with the help of Play the City. This serious game can provide insight into how to proceed with this situation. DO IT YOURSELF As soon as the signal to begin is given, the players crowd round the table which has been placed 13

14 next to the model. The table contains piles of coloured blocks representing houses, offices, restaurants, creative companies, social services and green spaces. The idea is to introduce these elements between the existing development in the Binckhorst, which is currently characterised by (empty) offices, motor repairs and graphic industries. While the rules of the game are still being repeated out loud like a mantra by some players, most quickly make their way over to the model to try out their ideas for developing the area. You should come and join me. Then you ll be able to build bigger, says a woman to a couple of residents and small businessmen who are standing looking rather lost next to the model. As spokesperson for the Private Customer Collective (CPO) she is actively seeking others to collaborate with. It works. In next to no time a large group has formed around an empty industrial building. With their do-it-yourself mentality, the players soon revision the site as residential units and creative companies. In other parts of the area parasite homes suddenly appear on the roofs of office buildings. The resident who is responsible for this illegal development defends his approach thus: If the council tolerates me in the first round, I ll expand the number of houses slowly and become legal of my own accord. It s a method that seems to bear fruit, because after a number of go s this resident has increased the number of apartments and attracted some fellow players to move in to his development. The lack of money doesn t hinder the lust to build for a moment, while the lack of rules and regulations seems to egg the players on even more. After every five minutes, which is equivalent to one year s development, the game is stopped to analyse what the key changes are. At these junctures the Mayor can use his power of veto to sweep existing projects from the board. The activist also has the same power, but with the proviso that s/he must find at least five other players to support her/his veto. There are even a number of voting rounds built in in which the participants can embrace new developments or alternatively vote them out. This not only throws relationships into sharp relief during the game, but is also a way of seeing which plans have a chance of succeeding in reality. As the round progresses in years, the development of the area also grows with the addition of housing and businesses, many of which re-use existing buildings. In this way the available space is used extremely efficiently. Even after 15 minutes of play, one can see that the area is bursting with housing alongside the water, creative clusters and green parks. Living in the Binckhorst isn t so bad at all. BIG, BIGGER, BIGGEST How different the behaviour of the players is when the game is played according to the Dutch model. The Mayor s speech in which he outlined the difficult financial situation is unchanged, but this time there are also notable obstacles that influence the state of play. For instance, there are zones demarcated on the model where no housing is allowed in accordance with environmental laws. What is striking is that these are the very zones that were built full of houses in the previous round. The ideal living places turn out to be unlivable in reality. In this situation an important arterial road, the Rotterdamsebaan, is now running straight through the Binckhorst: a project that the Hague city council actually has in its locality plan. Because of these limitations in the playing field, the attitude of the players immediately changes. Whereas the participants in the Albanian model hardly gave a thought in advance to the steps they were going to take, the game is mainly at a standstill the first minutes of this round. There s a lot of deliberation and discussion, but nobody appears to be entrepreneurial straight off. Eventually it turns out to be the big players the project developers and the big contractors who after much deliberation dare to take the first steps. And those steps are quite bold. A large apartment complex, a hotel and a sizeable multipurpose function hall spring up alongside the motorway. The building volume and the market value seem to be the most important things about these landmarks. That is remarkable, considering 14

15 that the council s coffers are still empty during this round. Apparently the players feel confident enough that these large projects will succeed in finding their way to the market. The strict rules and regulations spark quite a power struggle between various parties. It quickly becomes apparent that the building of apartments alongside the Rotterdamsebaan won t be allowed by the council. The amount of noise and pollution means that a housing project in this location is not practical. Also, the energy and enthusiasm that was brimming over in the first round is noticeably lacking in the second. Instead of making use of the empty spaces where environmental zoning and infrastructure aren t an obstacle, the players go looking for problems. One project developer places detached villas alongside the Rotterdamsebaan, drawing fierce objections from one resident. Despite all the action, things are getting nowhere fast. At a certain moment, the mood has soured to the point that a powerful developer declares that he s not going to invest in the area any more. Like many other players, he feels there s a lack of clear vision from the council. Even the activist can t see the point of being active any more and keeps quiet. The players seem to be derailed by the environmental zones and the road that cuts through the area. What is remarkable in both rounds is that nobody really feels responsible for the development of social provision. The lack of schools, doctors surgeries and care homes for the elderly suggests that there is either not much thought about the future, or an expectation that the government will pay for social provision. LESSONS What new insights into the development of the Binckhorst does Play the City offer? In both situations the council had no money, let alone a clear vision for the future. In contrast to the Dutch round, this wasn t seen as a problem in the Albanian round. Here the players revealed themselves to be cooperative and full of energy when it came to planning the area. In the Dutch model the players are focused on the drawbacks of regulation, even though the model offered plenty of room to develop the environmental zones. The way in which the game developed therefore most closely resembles a self-fulfilling prophecy. In both rounds the players acted as expected: small scale and cooperative in the Albanian round, as opposed to large scale and conservative in the Dutch round. It could be that the players romanticised the Albanian model too much. The Dutch tendency to tighten the reins is not comparible to the reasons why organic urban development in Albania reached such a high tempo. For the Albanians the fall of the communist regime in 1991 signalled the start of an explosive growth of illegal building settlements. The fact that the country was experiencing unstable democracy and financial crisis meant that the population had to fend for itself. Social provision such as sewers and infrastructure was therefore neglected. Although public provision is now being provided step by step, the situation in Albania still contrasts sharply with the well-organized Netherlands. The main lesson to emerge from this game is that neither model is sustainable in the longterm. A Binckhorst that is completely illegal and devoid of social provision is just as undesirable as a monolithic Binckhorst with large scale infrastructure. A middle path between these two ways is needed. Anyone who wants to encourage spontaneous initiatives can not just lean back and see how it turns out. That is exactly when leadership and vision are indispensible. If the Hague s city council wants to make a success of the organic development of the Binckhorst, they will need to be just as proactive as the DIY pioneers they d like to do the job. 15

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17 THE CASE OF CO-PLAN AND POLIS UNIVERSITY Besnik Aliaj In Albania I am known as one of the Dutch guys from Co-PLAN/POLIS who are pushing for the reform of the Albanian planning and education systems into more structured and regulated practices, as found in northern Europe and specifically in the Netherlands. Personally I consider my intellectual and professional growth to be a product of my own work, a combination of Albanian background and Dutch/international exposure. I spent two years studying my postgraduate specialization in the Netherlands at Erasmus University and Institute for Housing and Urban Development Studies (IHS) Rotterdam, and then worked in Albania for almost 15 years in close partnership with Dutch NGOs. But now I ve been invited to come over and discuss the fact that the Dutch planning system has become too rigid and needs some gymnastics. Countries like Albania, and the Balkans in general, which are known for their informality and chaotic developments over the past two decades, are deemed to be helpful, inspirational and useful as reference points. This is really confusing to me but it is a good confusion it means that after 15 years I can also reposition myself and acknowledge once again that we change, that societies change, that planning in itself changes and evolves, and that we desperately need to reform ourselves and move ahead. FROM GRASSROOTS TO TECHNICAL PLATFORM Since the early 90s, my colleagues and I at Co- PLAN one of the most prominent and reputable professional NGOs in the country developed an alternative way of thinking about urban planning in Albania and the wider Balkans. We started with grassroots community-based projects, with a strong participatory logic. And we started with the most complex case: the emerging informal settlements of Tirana, which at that time were not yet seen as up-and-coming phenomena by the authorities or society in general. There we built the first pilot models, growing in scale and replicating the latter to city scale trying to bridge authorities and communities, combining physical economy and environmental perspectives. During we pushed strongly for change at the highest political level. Co-PLAN proposed a technical platform to all political parties in the Albanian parliament, calling for reformative measures in the way the national territory and resources are planned, developed and administered. It has been a difficult but inspiring, almost heroic phase, where we had to confront a broad audience and exposed our ideas through considerable coverage by local and national media. The opposition at that time adopted most of this platform, which caused a lot of political and public debate especially on informal developments, formalization, restitution 17

18 of properties, environmental and tourism issues, planning and database creation, decentralization and regionalization, and so on. POLITICS In 2005 I resigned from Co-PLAN to work with the new Prime Minister, Sali Berisha, and establish a task force for the reformation of planning modernization and formalization. For the first time in the history of Albanian institutions we undertook a survey/research on informality on a national scale. The work was intensive and tough, politically. It raised expectations, jealousies and fears, and because of inertia of the bureaucracy and politics it proved hard to change the status quo. So at a certain point I decided to resign and get back to my professional world. At that point, in collaboration with my friends of Co-PLAN and many internationally trained Albanian professionals, we initiated POLIS University as a platform to disseminate such experience in Albania and region, and create a critical mass of expertise that will guarantee the real reform of the Albanian planning system. Despite such ups and downs we learned a lot. But the main lesson came from the research we produced during the time I lead the task force in Albanian government. Some of the most dramatic findings of the survey: 1. In terms of quantity the Albanian economy contains an equivalent amount of extra-legal economy of 13 Billion US$ (2007 values), almost equal to the value of the formal GDP1. So if this amount of dead capital were to be integrated into the formal one, the country s economy would be dramatically changed. 2. The different forms of call it informal/ organic/extra-legal economy could be classified into four main groups: A Illegal economy, including organised criminal activity: the trafficking of goods, drugs, humans representing 10-15% of share. With this typology of informality you don t make compromise but war! Every country has it, and although it is impossible to eradicate completely, it should at least be kept to a minimum. The question is how to keep it under control and minimize at maximum. More than 60 criminal groups were arrested within the first 6 months and most of the trafficking links were cut down. At that point Albania was rewarded with membership to NATO and progressed accession relations with the EU. B Informal economy 30-35% of share, mainly comprising people and families that are forced to fall into this category due to the lack of legal and affordable solutions by authorities in terms of real estate (housing) and business (employment) opportunities. In this category we recommended reforming integrative measures like formalization laws for housing and busineses, easing licensing procedures, reducing costs and timing, and so on. C Extra-legal economy 20-25% of share, coming mainly from that section of society that wants to respect laws, but because of either an inefficient government, human mistakes or corruption, their properties and businesses are not registered properly and therefore not fairly contributing to the society via taxes. For this category several measures were undertaken to fight corruption in public administration and services. D Formal economy 20-25% of share, those who shouldered the real costs of Albania s progress during the last 20 years. These groups must be topped up with category B and C in order to achieve formalization of the economy. 3. If Albania continues with this structure and speed of development it will need at least 3-4 decades to reach the average standard of EU, which is the real integration, as opposed to the political decision of acceptance to be undertaken soon in Brussels. 18

19 MOVING TOWARDS EACH OTHER Nowadays Albania has changed a lot and we all learned a lot. Still, Albanian economy remains largely informal/organic/extra-legal. Within the conditions of the global crisis, strangely informality the status of not being integrated within society and an international global economy is what helped Albania to resist crisis and perform better than developing economies. The Albanian economy is still growing and is a leading economy in the region. Everything is not perfect, but then, not everything we proposed was perfect either. But despite this, POLIS hopefully will have a long-term impact. Finally, I think the Netherlands and Albania are different and yet similar in so many ways. We can learn from each other and make a difference, and at the same time we all need to learn how to think outside the box. I believe that Albania still needs to learn from the Netherlands in terms of regulations, systems and roles of planning, but the Netherlands might also learn from the creativity and energy of Albanian people and entrepreneurship, not expecting everything to be provided by the authorities. I believe we must meet together somewhere in the middle, half way, hopefully in a sustainable integrative structure like EU. 19

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