Urban Project of Recuperation of Historic City-Center of Santa Cruz

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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
United Nations Region: Island
Activity: City / Town
Partnerships: Local Government. Multilateral Agency

Themes = Architecture and Urban Design: affordable/ecological design; historic preservation; sustainable community design. Economic Development: cooperative opportunities; enterprise development (formal and informal sectors); micro-credit; training. Urban and Regional Planning; community-based planning; consultative process; cultural heritage conservation; urban renewal

Main contact:
Juan Antonio Padrón Sabina
URBAN-TENERIFE Office (City Council)
C/ General Antequera, 14
Santa Cruz
38004 Santa Cruz de Tenerife
Canary Islands
SPAIN
Tel: +34-922 60 60 57 / 60 60 70
Fax: +34-922 60 61 96
E-mail: jpadron@arrakis.es

Partner:
Rosa Cobo
European Regional Development Fund (ERDF). (Multilateral Agency)
Paseo de la Castellana,162
28046 Madrid
SPAIN
Tel: +34-91 583 52 34
Fax: +34-91 583 52 72
Financial support

Partner:
Juan Antonio Padrón Sabina
City Council of Santa Cruz de Tenerife. (Local Government)
C/ General Antequera, 14
Santa Cruz
38004 Santa Cruz de Tenerife
Canary Islands
SPAIN
Tel: +34-922 60 60 57 / 60 60 70
Fax: +34-922 60 61 96
Financial support

Partner:
Alfredo González
Insular Tenerife Council. (Local Government)
Plaza de España
38003 Santa Cruz de Tenerife
Canary Islands
SPAIN
Tel: +34-922 23 95 00
Fax: +34-922 23 97 86
Financial support

Nominating Organisation:
Comité Nacional Español
D. Marta García Nart
Paseo de la Castellana 67
Ministerio de Fomento
Madrid 28071
SPAIN
Tel: +34-91 597 75 72
Fax: +34-91 597 86 04
E-mail: mgnart@mfom.es

Key Dates

S U M M A R Y

Situation after: The actions will finish at December 1999, so: 80% of historic city center will be pedestrian, with full accesibility to every kind of handicapped, and it will has the physical and economical condition and resources to be and "open air commercial center"; based on small and medium comercial and services companies. Indicators: New pwdestrian area: 3.950 m2. New gardener area: 8.672 m2. New trees: 401. New parking places underground: 2.690. New social and economic improvement buildings: 6. New touristic attraction buildings: 4. Facades restoration of the oldest city: 95%. Intranet service to small enterprises.
New direct employments: 158 at February 1998.
Major impact: jobs cration.
Other lessons: effective combination of resources in attach urban problems.

N A R R A T I V E

1. Situation before
In 1982, the city aproved a Plan to preserve the oldest area of the city. So the plan was too obsolete.
The following works and documents of the 1992 General Urban Plan of the city determines the main lines of development in all areas. At the city center there was made a work about protection of oldest buildings and public equipments and modify the model of accesibility, wich based on public transport and parkings around the central area.

From 1992 to middle 1994, again, the municipality had no economic resources to attach the problems.
It was possible thanks to the European Union URBAN Initiative, through acces to the necesary founds.
So, the URBAN Proyect of Santa Cruz of Tenerife was based on the previous planning 1982 to 1992, the new social and economic works made between 1991 and 1994 and the main basic idea of the URBAN Iniciative: the concentration of resources on the integral urban development.
The previous relation between the key partners -Municipality and European Regional Development Founds (ERDF)- was through the construction of a Maritime Park and a recent transform of an old dump in a museum of palm-trees: the Palmetum, that is now completed in a 80% of the whole.
Santa Cruz city center had in 1991 the 50% unemployed whole island and the number of workers in that area went down between four and seven points in the last ten years. In the same time the city center had to close 44% of its touristic lodging.
The local Industry in only one year decreased a 76,52% in the number of workers. The construction descent in a 49,56% of activity. The city center lost population, becouse of emigration to other places of the island, wich happened so quickly that the vacant housing has been growing up until a 95% in the last ten years. The rehabilitation of house building at the city center, went down a 86,2% between 1990 and 1991.

Objetives
The recuperation Plan of the historic city-center of Santa Cruz creates actuation of phisique rehabilitation, with the principal objetive of reaching the economic recuperation of the quarters included in the program and offers alternatives of stable job creation.
All the courses and the schools working at the moment have the target of creation stable employement, through creating in the future cooperatives of asociated work or taking part in privated enterprises are going on at the moment.
Another of the principal objetives is the permanent information-training of the cityzen about enviromental issues and civic education, being that schools right way to finish with the delincuency that makes our cities suffering.
The project counts on the cooperation with small and medium companies that belong to the city center wich gets advantage of the most proyects URBAN develops.
The proyect of recuperation of the historic city center is more than improvement psysical area, as its last objetive is to get the city center works -in every area, and specially in economic one- like a huge and comercial surface.

Process
To get that, is going on -since a few years ego and turning out well- the municipal net public parking, wich pretend makes disappear private vehicles of the central roads and so supporting the public transport accesibility to the city center. The public area that way recuperated, are wich the proyect URBAN Santa Cruz will convert in squares with trees and gardened areas.

The rehabilitation of the Concepcion quarters and the creation of a turistic and comercial roads to the center, have both objetive of recuperation to Santa Cruz the turistic destiny that it allways had.
In the same way, the Council has a Maritime Park and the Isular goverment has an exhibition area congress hall. There are also in construction a new Auditorium and the "Palmetum"; wich makes the city be able to offer complementary alternatives of leisure that are already working in the rest of the island.
With these named Proyects working and some complementary to develop by the private companies, the city will be able to reach economic activity enough to offer jobs -stable future- to the inhabitants.
The actuations respect enviromental improvment of the central area include:

• full accesibility to every kind of handicapped persons
  
• to give new areas and pedestrian and change of actual model of
  accesibility to the city center, helped with the public transport with the support of the net of private and public parkings.

• workshop school of building
  
• rehabilitation, workshop of new artesanies
  
• turistic guides, workshop of urban maintenance
  
• training of informatic and news tecnologies of the information applied to new systems of selling and a better rentability of the small and medium companies.

• new pedestrian and garden areas
  
• new parkings
  
• larger number of trees and bushes
  
• new pavimentation and lights
  
• more number of new equipment for the social and economic improvement
  
• equipment of touristic attraction and new parking on areas disappearing.

URBAN Santa Cruz colaborate with the follow NGO's: TECNIQUE Initiative, CÁRITAS, and OPECAN.
Collaboration with neighbors associations of the area: Cabreros, La Concepción, Centro Histórico, etc.
At the present time there are institutional agreements between: City Council - Insular Tenerife Council and City Council - National Employment Agency. We are also in contact with the Canary Goverment to preceed in the same way.

Achieved results
Actions working at the moment

• 50% of the training actions
  
• Carry out the 15% belong the chapter of Creation companies of asociated works.
  
• Carry out the 15% of the equipment of improvment the economic subjet.
  
• Beginning at the moment are the 15% of the actions of social integration of people with less oportunities.
  
• Since December 1997, the actions of enviromental improvment are awared and they will finish in 20 months time.
  

Sustainability

In the last three years most of the planned works have been developed. That way, the first of January 2000, Santa Cruz city center will wake up being a different and new city, wich will have touristic attractives, the very best conditions for the small and medium enterprises to be able to develope correctly and they will have tools that will garantize a equilibrated development of sustainability.