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Reference Date: 26-07-98
Experience selected in the 1998 Dubai Award for Best Practice, and catalogued as DUBAI AWARD 1998.
(
Best Practices Database.)
País/Country: Spain
United Nations Region: Europe
Ecological region: coastal
Activity: city/town
Partnerships: Local Authority. Private Sector
Themes = Urban and Regional Planning: urban renewal
Main contact:
Council of Malaga (Local authority)
Pedro Marín Cots
Avda. Cervantes, 4
Málaga
Spain
29016
Tel: +34 952 13 59 42
Fax: +34 952 13 54 20
E-mail: pmcots@ingenia.es
Partner:
Council of Malaga (Local authority)
Pedro Marín Cots
Avda. Cervantes, 4
Málaga
Spain
29016
Tel: +34 952 13 59 42
Fax: +34 952 13 54 20
E-mail: pmcots@ingenia.es
Partner One Support Type: Financial Support
Partner:
Town Planning Department (Local authority)
Julio García Vilanova
C/ Palestina, 7
Málaga
Spain
29007
Tel: +34 952 13 57 55
Fax: +34 952 13 57 15
Partner Two Support Type: Technical Support
Partner:
Malaga Historic Centre Association (Private sector)
Francisco Martín Rojas
Especerías, 5
Málaga
Spain
29005
Tel: +34 952 21 97 91
Partner Three Support Type: Other/Private Business and Company
Organization
Financial Profile:
Total sum for the investment for 1995-99: Pesetas 9,400 million.
Contribution from the associates: Malaga City Council: 50%
Town Planning Department: 50%
This rapid development took place without control and without the
proper levels being established for infrastructures, urban
facilities and green areas.
At the same time, growth spreading to the outside of the city
caused the marginalisation and deterioration of the historic city
centre.
When the city's growth stabilised in the early 1990s, the main
objective of the municipal authorities was to achieve balanced
levels for infrastructures for drainage, town planning, green
areas and community facilities, whilst incorporating questions
regarding the treatment of effluents and recycling of waste.
The programmes for improving the urban environment began in 1995,
with the end of their first phase being envisaged in 1999. They
consist of putting Malaga up-to-date as a modern city, which will
repair the deep wounds caused to it by the economic boom of the 60s
and which is committed to the recovery of the historic centre, in
which works for infrastructures, urban decongestion,
refurbishment of dwellings and improvements in social services and
facilities.
Works have been carried out in the city as a whole for waste water
treatment, for the collection of solid waste with a waste treatment
plant, the renovation or construction of 5 parks, the preparation
of a map of noise in the city for detecting the most problematic
areas in order to modify and prevent sound pollution, as well as a
campaign to make the citizens aware about environmental
questions.
1. Situation prior to the start of the action
The city of Malaga, located in the South of Spain on the shores of
the Mediterranean, maintained a moderate population in the first
half of the century, as well as in the scope of its surrounding
territory. As from 1960, the economic model for Malaga was aimed
almost exclusively towards the twofold objective of tourist and
construction services. Which led to a great expansion of the city,
with its population doubling in 20 years (1960: 250,000
inhabitants, 1980: 503,000 inhabitants).
The rapid growth in the supply of tourist services, which over time
came to be known as the "Costa del Sol", attracted a population
originally employed in agricultural work who wanted to increase
their low level of income. Physically they settled in the central
areas in slum dwellings and on the outskirts of the city, which
grew greatly and chaotically, with huge problems of shanty towns
and the breakdown of the environment.
The heavy dependence on exogenous elements for the economic
development of the area, such as tourism, acted in a twofold manner
on urban planning and growth. On the one hand, it made it possible
to improve the income level for the population and create stable
employment. On the other hand, the expansive development model used
paid no heed to the environment, which, over time, was to become a
burden for the present-day city.
The considerable growth of the metropolitan area spread outwards,
with the historic city centre being marginalised during the process
for transforming the city. This area, formed by the segment
covering the old Nazari city wall and the working-class
neighbourhoods adjacent thereto, has remained practically unaltered
in its morphological structure right up to the nineteen nineties.
The scant public and private investment in the historic centre
produced a state of physical, environmental and social breakdown
that was clearly negative when compared to the rest of the city. At
the same time, the process of marginalisation and isolation of the
city centre as an urban part of the city has caused not just the
loss of population (8,968 inhabitants in 1981 and 6,251 in 1995)
and the physical deterioration of its streets and squares, but also
the abandonment of its functional and symbolic capabilities as the
central area of the city.
When, at the beginning of the eighties, the city stabilised its
growth rate, the main objective of the municipal authorities was to
achieve balanced levels in infrastructures for sewage, town
planning, green areas and community facilities. These first needs
for the improvement of the urban environment in the city, were to
be extended in the nineties with works for water treatment and for
the recycling of solid wastes.
Municipal interest in the overall remodelling of the city (and
especially of the historic centre) was demonstrated by the General
Plan for Urban Planning in 1983 and the Special Plan for the
Historic Centre in 1990 and by the Regional Plans for Services.
In the middle of the eighties, the Town Planning Department was
created which was to mean financial and technical support for the
City Council in the task of refurbishing the city. Since the
beginning of this decade, a private association of shop owners and
businessmen called the Historic Centre of Malaga has been
collaborating within the scope of the historic centre.
2. Preparing information and classifying priorities
Although in the initial period, the City Council
paid for the costly tasks of rebuilding the city's
infrastructures with its own funds, its joining of different
programmes co-financed with funds from the European Union made it
possible to establish two lines of priorities: a) the recovery of
the city's historic centre, b) the provision of modern
environmental services throughout the metropolitan area capable of
setting the bases for environmental sustainability: complete
treatment of waste water, recycling and composting of wastes, new
green spaces and a decided emphasis on making citizens more aware.
3. Drawing up of objectives, strategies and mobilising resources
In the Malaga of today with 560,000 inhabitants, the objectives of
the programmes for improving the urban environment were prepared
and financed mainly (with the contribution of 45% from the EU) by
the City Council and the Town Planning Department, with support, in
the case of the historic centre, from the private association
mentioned above. The main objectives are:
A) Rehabilitation and revitalisation of the historic centre, with
a cost of Pesetas 5,100 million. It consists of a number of
physical actions for the recovery of broken down areas (area around
the streets called Camas and Alcazabilla), clearing of congested
areas (S. Julian and Pozos Dulces Squares) and the creation of open
spaces. The reform of the infrastructures and buildings are an
essential aspect in improving the quality of life in the area, both
for its resident population and for those who normally travel to it
for commercial or tourist reasons.
On the other hand, the development of the economic fabric was
strengthened by promoting private enterprise in the modernisation
of the production capacities of the small businesses located in the
area. A plan was prepared for the colour of the centre, in which
the buildings were ordered according to the historical period
(baroque, eclectic, contemporary and modern) and their level of
preservation, subsidies were set up for refurbishing the fa.ades
which would also make it possible to improve the buildings.
Social care and investment in facilities in an area with very
specific pockets of begging, prostitution and immigration is one of
the most important aspects of the intervention in the historic
centre.
B) Programmes for urban sustainability.
A network of main sewage collector drains is also envisaged in
different neighbourhoods and the channelling of streams in the area
for the widening the city. Cost, Pesetas 2,950 million.
4. Process
The projects were started in 1995. In the case of those jointly
financed by the European Union, there had to be prior approval from
the programme in which they were to be included (URBAN, POMAL,
FUTURES).
The incorporation of the neighbourhood centres for the selective
collection of solid urban wastes was initially met with great
opposition from the neighbours, since they considered them to be
mini rubbish tips, when in fact they were clean points, a question
that was demonstrated using the first centre built as a pilot
experiment. The development of the rest of the actions did not have
any particular problems, apart from the painstaking administrative
procedures for contracting the works.
5. Results achieved
At the present the degree of execution for the projects planned
stands at 68%, with 30% of those initially planned being completely
finished. The level of monitoring of the programme is check
quarterly using financial, physical, impact and employment
indicators which show the value performed according to what was
initially scheduled.
For example, in the reform of the Historic Centre, in the works for
which the object is to subsidise the refurbishment of dwelling, the
number of buildings renovated is shown as an indicator (as of
31-12-97: 70), which means 71.43% of the buildings scheduled. At
the same time, the investment pumped in by the private promoters of
the works stands at Pesetas 2,720 million, 80% of the forecast, and
the environmental improvement has a ratio of 39 of the 70 forecast,
which means 55.71%.
The development of the programmes has modified the internal
mechanisms for municipal management by modernising them in their
day-to-day work which means meeting some of the objectives within
a time scale.
6. Sustainability
The concept of sustainability will mean an improvement in the
landscaping and aesthetic quality of the main thoroughfares in a
city which inherited serious lacks of environmental infrastructures
from the financial boom which harmed its quality of life.
In the field of water treatment and the recycling of waste, it was
intended to reach 100% and 95%, respectively in the recovery of
resources, by maintaining the development of the projects after the
initial investment with public funds from the municipality and the
involvement of the private sector.
Within the scope of the Historic Centre, the same as wit the city's
parks, the maintenance of the investment made in infrastructures
would be paid for by the city council though the main efforts for
the recovery of the buildings was to be privately funded. Value is
added to the historical, cultural and tourist area through the
programmes, though the problems of sustainability as regards social
marginalisation still represent a question that is very difficult
to solve.
On the level of the city as a whole, the idea of sustainability
must mean urban development that is to be harmonious and aimed at
the quality of life of its inhabitants. The drought suffered by
Andalusia between 1992 and 1996 caused much lower water consumption
than usual, so the city did not have to resort to restrictions.
This example may be used as an idea for inculcating amongst the
population the sense that each work that is carried out in the
urban environment should take into account not just measures for
the quality of production or services, but rather changes which
will favour sustainability in the urban design, in the construction
of dwellings, in the infrastructures or in the control of
transportation and traffic.
7. Lessons learnt
The programmes for improving the urban environment are the
technical and especially economic realisation of some proposals
made on a planing level in which Malaga was a pioneer, since it won
the national prize for Town Planning in 1985.
In 1995, the Malaga Green Charter was approved, which contains an
Agenda 21 in the sense that was proclaimed in the Rio de Janeiro
Conference in 1992. The Charter has been ratified by over 150
institutions, companies and groups in the city.
Recently, Malaga received the 2nd European Prize for the
Sustainable City of 1997 awarded by the Council of Municipalities
and Regions of Europe for the Malaga Green Charter. At the present
time the city is preparing its candidacy for the environmental
network in the URB-AL programme.
Along these lines, the influences received cover a wide cultural
spectrum, renewed by the recent ideas for a sustainable city and
the experiences from Habitat I.
8. Transfer
Though Malaga had a classic European urban development, the fast
and chaotic economic and urban growth contains elements of
dependent development that are so usual in developing countries or
areas. For this reason, the similarities with the processes
undergone in Malaga may perhaps be of greater use on an overall
city level in Latin America, Africa or Southern Europe.
The projects for the renovation of the Historic Centre, mainly the
level of scale of the works, or the treatment of the colour of the
buildings according to their historical period may have a general
application as may be seen in the network created in Vicenza by the
URB-AL programme.
9. References
See Press Dossier
| 1998 Spanish Best Practices selected by the International Jury > http://habitat.aq.upm.es/bpes/onu98/bp460.en.html |