Forankring af kvarterløft - Tverskov Kommunikation & Udvikling

Summary
By og Byg Documentation 029
Urban development programmes and institutional sustainability
Area-based urban development programmes such as Kvarterløft – apart
from being spatially targeted and operating an integrated set of political and
administrative instruments – are characterised by being limited in time.
Moreover, it is a distinct feature of the Danish Kvarterløft projects that a
considerable transfer of economic and other resources take place in the
course of the project period. Consequently, the issue of continuation is
naturally raised towards the end of the project period. In what way are
activities expected to go on beyond the official termination of the project?
Are the activities financially viable and institutionally sustainable? Has a
strategy for phasing-out been prepared? Who holds the responsibility and
takes over when project management and staff are no longer there? Is it
likely that the social, institutional, and physical improvements that have been
achieved will prevail in the future and that further deterioration in the
neighbourhood has been prevented?
The first generation of in total seven Danish Kvarterløft projects was
launched in 1996-97, some of which were officially closed after five years at
the end of 2001. Others have been extended for another two years. Due to a
request from the central Government’s Kvarterløft office, the project leaders
have been preparing a so-called exit strategy before official termination of
the projects.
– This report takes its point of departure in existing evidence of how to
ensure that a take-over from temporary (urban) development projects –
be it by community-based or local government-based bodies – will
continue to be well-functioning. It appears that the future sustainability of
the changes and improvements that have been accomplished during a
project primarily depends on the institutional capacity of the organizations
that take over. This in turn relies on four factors:
– governance mode and distribution of responsibility,
– local ownership and local partnerships,
– finance and day-to-day operation,
– follow-up and learning.
An exit strategy that aims to ensure the institutional sustainability of the
achieved progress – and the actual organizational implementation of it – has
to take the above points into consideration. However, the specific design of
such a strategy will vary depending on the circumstances of the single
project and its setting.
Based on the study of exit strategies of the Danish Kvarterløft projects
and interviews with planners and stakeholders, the analysis distinguishes
between three different approaches to project termination. The first model is
a Division of Labour Model in which future tasks are shared between
community organizations on the one hand and local government on the
other. The local community-based organizations take over responsibility for
the future running of the completed projects. The responsibility of the local
authorities at municipal level is confined to projects originally planned but yet
not completed. The responsibility to plan and prepare possible new project
rests with the community itself.
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