An Integral Program on Housing Rehabilitation for Social Purposes, Vilafranca del Penedès (Spain)

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Reference Date: 26-07-1998

Experience selected in the 1998 Dubai Award for Best Practice, and catalogued as BEST. ( Best Practices Database.)
País/Country: Spain

United Nations Region: Europe
Ecological region: Coastal
Activity: City / Town
Partnerships: Regional Government. Central Government. Non-governmental organisation (NGO). Private Sector

Themes = Housing: affordable housing; eco-logical design; homelessness. Social Services: health and welfare. Urban and Regional Planning; community-based planning; cultural heritage conservation; urban renewal.

Main contact:
Margarida Camprubí i Vendrell
Town Hall of Vilafranca del Penedès. (Local Government)
Plaça Jaume I, 8-10
Vilafranca del Penedès
08720 Barcelona
Spain
Tel: +34-93 892 03 58
Fax: +34-93 817 17 40
E-mail: ajuntament@ajvilafranca.es
http://www.ajvilafranca.es

Partner:
Joan Esteve
Nou-Set. (Private Sector: Job-placement enterprise for handicapped persons)
Carretera de Sant Martì, s/n
Vilafranca del Penedès
08720 Barcelona
Spain
Collaborating on job placement for of handicapped persons.

Partner:
Jordina Gallemí Casanelles
Cáritas- Vilafranca. (Non-governmental organisation: Catholic civil organisation)
Casal, 2
Vilafranca del Penedès
08720 Barcelona
Spain
Tel: +34-93 890 13 24.
Aid to persons in need.

Partner:
Magí Casulleres
FECA (Privarte sector: supplier of building material enterprise)
Ctra. Sant Martí, S/N
Vilafranca del Penedès
08720 Barcelona
Spain
Tel: +34-93 817 03 53
Type of support: technical

Key Dates

S U M M A R Y

This program is City Hall run, involving the Departments of Social Services, Economic Development, and Urban Planning, and based on a contractual agreement made with the owners of abandoned flats and buildings in the downtown area. In exchange for the City Hall's paying for remodelation, the owners rent out their flats to those people selected by the Department of Social
Services, over a given time and rate of rent.

In fulfilling the agreement, the City Hall is expected to bring the flats up to the standard required by present housing regulations, with adequate structure and function. After the predetermined time period, the flats are returned to the owners in perfect conditon.

In exchange for this, the owners agree to rent out the flats at approximately half the normal rate, withholding any objections towards the families selected by the department of Social Services.

The program has succeeded with its desired objectives, prescribed by the departments involved. The Department of Social Services disposes of affordable housing for homeless, poor, and immigrant families.

The Department of Urban Planning has witnessed a dynamic change in the downtown; ceasing increasing deterioration and by renewing the residential population, insuring the satisfactory economic and social balance of commercial, office, and residential space in the sector, as well as contributing to an already existing urbanistic plan (PERI).

Finally, the Department of Economic Development is
able to offer substantial job experience and placement to students of the city run vocational training workship, and give work opportunities, often subsidized by other public administrations, to the physically and mentally handicapped, persons with previous drug and criminal records, and the long-term unemployed.
The program focused mainly on privately owned flats and buildings, where the beneficiaries were both landlords and tenants. In a few of thecases, the buildings in question were owned by the City Hall or by charitable organizations or foundations, such as Caritas, a secular Catholic organization.

The types of the interventions can be divided into two groups:

1. Empty buildings/flats that needed rehabilition in order to be reinhabited.
   
2. Flats/buildings that were inhabited by families with limited resources, but needed rehabilitation in order to meet current housing regulations.

• The City Hall would take control of the rehabilitation of the building, supplying both labor and material.
  
• The owner agreed to rent out the flat to the person(s) designated by the City Hall.
  
• The rent would be determined by surface area,location, and other conditioning features, within the limits set by the program and taken into account its social purpose.
  
• The City Hall would get a return on its inicial investment by receiving the rent during the designated time period after the project's completion, and through aid offered by the state government
  
• The duration of the agreement and number of months that the City Hall would receive the rent was proportional to the investment.

N A R R A T I V E

1. Situation before the initiative began
Affordable housing, a marginalized sector of the population, and a high rate of unemployment were problems concerning the community which could be considered principal factors leading to the development of our iniciative.

• Housing: An existing policy which prioritized the aquisition of private property had been the cause of conflict between landlords and tenants, consequently leading to the abandonment of the downtown as a residential area. As a direct result, many of the empty buildings were in a state of deterioration.
  
• Marginalized population: There was a sector of the population with socioeconomic problems, as well as a number of immigrant families with problems of social intergration.
  
• Unemployment: The lack of formal training and retraining, along with the trend towards industrial mechanization and automation have contributed to an increasing number of unemployed people unable to enter the job market.

Among the many things we considered:

• The development of a program we could offer the residential owners to renovate their flats/buildings in the designated area, made known to the community through the publication of an informative booklet and a radio campaign
  
• Community awareness, with the hope that it would extend to public and state institutions. The necessary field work in order to identify and situate the flats and/or buildings to be subject to our iniciative, as well as to choose potencial residents with the required socioeconomical needs.
  
• The preparation of a contractual agreement between the City Hall and the residential owners.

2. Formulation of objectives, strategies and mobilization of resources
The following three aspects were considered as precedents which favored and recommended the creation of our program, together with the existence of a close working relationship between the Social Services and the Economical Development departments of the City Hall.

• Social aspects: The housing conditions of people with limited economic resources would be improved, specifically those considered "needy".
  
• Urban aspects: The rehabilitation and reoccupancy of buildings and flats that had been abandoned would improve the economic growth of the downtown area, in particular its historic center.
  
• Work aspects: In a public effort to decrease unemployment, support was given to vocational training, offering special courses at the city run vocational training workshop (Escuela Taller), as well as providing on the job training.
  
• Occupational contracts and terms of social collaboration were offered to the students.
  
• Secundary aspects: The municipal intervention would serve as a regulator in urbanistic matters where private enterprises rarely intervened.

• Social aspects: The rehabilitated flats could be offered to people and families with social as well as economic difficulties, and to the youth.
  
• Urban Aspects: Housing renovation would be a preventive measure against the progressive deterioration of buildings in the city's historic center.
  
• Work aspects: This on the job training would lead to immediate employment, as well as providing a valuable experience in real life work situations for the students of the F. Layret Center for Vocational Training.

3. Process
It was decided that the Department of Urban Planning, in coordination with the other departments involved, should be given an important role in the program, considering the close relationship that exists between city planning and the preservation and reconstruction of the city's architectural heritage.

For this reason a special committee was appointed that would supervise the program, called the Housing Commission, presided over by the Mayor of the City Hall and made up of the Councillors from the Departments of Social Services, Economic Development, and Urban Planning. The main objective of this Commission was to establish the guidelines of a municipal policy on housing.
To execute those guidelines an Interdepartmental Executive Commission was formed, made up of the Heads of the departments involved. Their primary functions consisted in evaluating the plan of action, estimating costs, and coordinating the different departments.

The responsability of executing the program was given to a team formed by technicians working in each of the departments involved:

• The Department of Urban Planning assumed the direction of this office and took control of the technical preparation and control of the projects.
  
• Social Services was in charge of negotiations between the City Hall and the residential owners, as well as the selection of and relationship with the future tenants.
  
• The Department of Economic Development's job consisted in the coordination between the different departments and vocational centers involved and in the general administration in the office.

• Construction: This team was made up of builders and bricklayers. They worked with the vocational programs and agreedto social collaboration.
  
• Carpentry: Graduates of the city run vocational training school were given transitional contracts. These graduates have the support of a monitor and use the school's workshop.
  
• Electrical installations, plumbing and painting: This area is covered by contracts with Nou-Set, a job placement enterprise for handicapped people. They also work with vocational students who have the support of a skilled technician authorized in legal topics, among other special areas.
  
• Preparing and executing the projects: In this area we had the collaboration of an architect from the Department of Urban Planning in charge of overseeing the projects' preparation and implemention, following the criteria set by the administrative team. In reference to the elaboration of written reports and estimates, as well as supervision at the work site, we worked with university students of technical architecture, who were given special scholarships for their practices.
  
• Design and graphic representation: We had a draftsman who collaborated in the elaboration of the projects and was responsable for drawing the plans required in order to implement them. Periodically we worked with students of CAD (computer assisted design) who came to us by means of scholarships and practice programs.
  
• Administration: The administrative details of the program were seen to by workers from vocational programs and by students of The Professional Training Institute and SEFED (An administrative training program).

4. Achieved Results
The collaboration we received from the private sectors was greatly valued in that it made possible a new type of social housing, previously non-existent in the community, as well as providing affordable housing to a disadvantaged sector of the population and regulating rent rates in the community on the whole.

Since the iniciation of the program, we have intervened in a total of forty-seven privately owned flats. Of these, seventeen have been completed by means of an agreement with the owner.
The remaining thirty were small interventions in flats already occupied but in need of maintenence work in order to comply with housing regulations.
A total of twenty-five families have benefitted from our program, taking into account that the maximum length of lease for housing provided by the City Hall is five years. Ofthese, twenty-five per cent are immigrants. The program has involved intermittently a total of one hundred and sixty-five workers from different fields. Of these, forty per cent are currently employed outside the program. In addition to this, a total of seventy-two students from the city run vocational school have received on the job training. Also, it'sworth stressing the fact that the rehabilitation and reoccupation of the buildings and flats in mention has generated a dyanmic expansion and recuperation of the downtown, with participation and collaboration from different entities in the community.

Sustainability

The program is highlighted by the restoration of the existing principal elements of the buildings/flats involved through the use of recycled material. This material, directly obtained from the project sites or from buildings in the area undergoing remodeling or demolition, would be repaired and reused in the project.

Transferability

In 1994 we held a two day conference about our experience in Vilafranca with ten other Local Administrations, mostly from the province of Barcelona. In order to share our lessons with them.
This conference led to more meetings with the small and medium sized City Halls in the area, sponsored by Barcelona's Regional Council (Diputació).

Since then, more than twenty local administrations and private organizations have visited us to observe our program.
The Province's Department of Economical Develpment has selected our program to become a pilot project, designed to create a job placement enterprise for housing rehabilitation as a potencial field of employment for handicapped people.

Lessons learned

Of the many lessons learned, we'd like to mention:

• Initially the property owners were skeptical of the program. It was only through the development of a consistent and serious program that we were able to convince them that they would directly benefit from the iniciative, as well as the community.
  
• Traditional solutions are contemporary ones. The use of traditional solutions and materials, as well as the rehabilitation and maintenance of traditional homes, are viable solutions for a sustainable city.
  
• Transferability within the departments is beneficial in achieving the objectives. On the whole, working together as equal partners with a common goal has united us. Public administration can and should work together. It helps when the objectives are clear.

5. The experience in numbers
Financial Profile

For the financial year of 1998:

• Ajuntament de Vilafranca (City Hall): 50%
  
• Generalitat de Catalunya (State-Regional Government): 10%
  
• Diputació de Barcelona (Regional Council): 10%
  
• INEM (Central Government's Employement Institution): 5%
  
• Private Sector (Owners & Sponsors): 20%
  
• Non-profit Organizations (ONG): 5%

References

Anna Gual, Joaquim Gascó, Pruvi Almirall and Manuel Almasa (1995) "Creació y consolidació del Programa de Rehabilitació d'Habitatges amb finalitat social" (Revista del CIFA (Centre d'investigació, formació i assesorament. N. 17. May 1995. Page 5)

Gloria Clavero Aranda 1995 "Experències locals: Hábitat i serveis socials" (Quaderns de Serveis Socials. Diputació de Barcelona. Page: 6)

VVAA Multiple articles (Semanari El Tres de Vuit, Publications Penedès)

Oficina Municipal de l'Habitatge (Housing Office) (1992) Constant local information about the program (Revista setmanal "La Fura". Penedès edicions Nexos. Since 1992)