This is a CTP of initiative: Living Labs - Living Lab Eindhoven (Netherlands)
A group of residents have initiated a neighbourhood project in the / neighbourhood Prinsenjagt 3, located in the district Woensel Noord in Eindhoven, that is based on the idea of taking care of each other and referred to as ‘the caring neighbourhood’[in Dutch: ZorgSamenbuurt]. This initiative fits within the living lab approach of Eindhoven (also see related events). The residents developed a social network of people in the neighbourhood that were engaged in various activities together: with and for each other. They also used a building in the neighbourhood (old, empty house) as a physical meeting place. At some point in time they could not use this location anymore and they needed to find a new physical location for their activities. This appeared to be a challenging process since tensions and conflicts started to emerge between the residents. The formal institutions then played a mediating role in settling the issue. (N.B. this CTP [CTP5] has similarities with the type of process that was described in CTP3, however this CTP elaborates on another unique resident’s initiative, with its own dynamics.)
In the first phase of this community initiative, ‘the caring neighbourhood’, the formal institutions played a minor role. The residents were very independent and managed to pull off their own process. It was a project that fitted well within the ambitions that were formulated in the municipal policy documents of Eindhoven. Henri Koolen characterizes ‘the caring neighbourhood’ as follows: “a project that realizes the ambitions that we have and that we have written about in various lengthy policy papers, produced in the context of the transition that we are going through as municipality: problems should be solved within the neighbourhood as much as possible (..).” The project is developed in a neighbourhood where the houses are for 100% privately owned (on average Eindhoven has around 50%-50% division of private sector housing and social housing and as a district Woensel Noord has a similar average of its housing division, but not in this particular neighbourhood within the district). The residents that set ‘the caring neighbourhood’ up first operated rather harmoniously in their neighbourhood. They used an empty house that was situated in nr.19 in a street within their neighbourhood. That house was identified to be demolished and it was used in the meantime. They called this specific sub-project of developing a physical meeting place the ‘neighbourhood project nr.19 of the caring neighbourhood’ [in Dutch: Buurtproject nr 19 ZorgSamenbuurt]. Since the house (nr.19) was removed eventually, the residents started to look for a new location. They identified a new location: they wanted to construct a new small building on a playing ground. They framed it would cost 50.000 Euro and they were willing to cover the costs by themselves. Even though this idea is not in accordance with the (legally binding) urban planning guidelines, the municipality supported the process. But then they encountered challenges. Most of the residents were eager to support the project, but not all of them. Henri Koolen considered this type of conflict to be typical, but also very challenging. It is challenging for the residents themselves, but also for the municipality. The municipality supported an idea that did not fit within the policy and juridical procedures. It is possible to develop such an idea, it requires to ask for exemption from the rules and that would not have been so difficult if all residents were supporting the idea, but that was not the case. Learning to deal with such difficult situations is part of developing the new role that municipality is developing (also see co-production and related events) and that is critical for making the living lab approach a success.
This critical turning point is co-produced by a variety of actors:
The Prinsenjagt 3 neighbourhood is a quiet neighbourhood with privately owned houses and relatively well-off residents, with rather high incomes and rather high levels of education. The population is dominated by elderly people (above 60), but there are also some younger families living in the area.
The first step in this critical turning point is the foundation of the initiative. In an article published by Aedis-Actiz Kenniscentrum Wonen-Zorg (2014) it was mentioned that The initiative was taken by two residents of Prinsenjagt 3 (Kitty Hesen and José Bielderman), who wanted to make their neighbourhood suitable to grow old in, together. They mobilized people in their neighbourhood. They first focused on elderly people, but then realised they should include all residents. There was much support and commitment for their ideas. The residents expressed the desire to keep it small and resident-driven. They managed to make use of a small building (nr.19, see content) and they set-up a network for taking care of each other. They have activities such as drinking coffee together, but there is also a care brokerage service managing supply and demand of ‘caring together’: residents offer services (such as driving somebody to hospital) and others who need this can simply ask a broker, who then connects the people. This resident’s initiative did not emerge from the existing residents association, but it eventually got re-positioned as a sub-committee of the existing resident committee to keep the organisational structure within the neighbourhood simple (Aedis-Actiz Kenniscentrum Wonen-Zorg, 2014 – for access to the article, see the link below this section).
The house that was used by the residents was located within the neighbourhood. It was a very small house that was owned by the social housing agency Woonbedrijf. The residents asked if they could use it for their initiative and Woonbedrijf considered it to be a very useful and important initiative and they told them to simply use the building. They also explained to the residents that the house would be demolished, so the use was only temporary. That was known and agreed upon since the beginning.
Woonbedrijf was aware of this initiative almost since its inception, the municipality discovered it a later stage. But when the municipality learned about it, they got really interested in the initiative. Henri Koolen illustrates: “Our mayor Rob van Gijzel was the president of (..) a committee on participation and resident’s initiatives’ visited the initiative with the committee and they then prominently described this in a report.” He continues: “As a municipality we were so interested, because we advocate for change and decentralization in lengthy reports, and the residents were simply doing it here.” As a consequence, the municipality was supporting the initiative, but they did not engage themselves too much, to avoid that the initiative would lose its main strength: ownership of the residents.
The second step in this critical turning point is about planning for a new location, this step is co-produced by the same actors as the first. It is triggered by the fact that the house is being demolished. This was a decision that was taken before the initiative started in which Woonbedrijf and the municipality were involved. Woonbedrijf was not interested in continuing to support the resident’s group, they are a social housing agency and their activities should target people in need of social housing. This resident’s group did not fit that profile so Woonbedrijf withdrew after the house was demolished.
The residents group then developed an idea to build a new small building, they developed a plan and made a cost calculation and budgeted the intervention at 50.000 Euro. They asked the municipality for support and the municipality was eager to support in terms of helping with providing land and giving legal permission, but they would not fund the initiative. That was agreed and the residents were willing and able to fund the project by themselves. The municipality made up the balance and decided to support it as Henri explained: “And then, as a municipality, we say, spatial interventions follow social needs. Strictly speaking we could not approve it, since it goes against the urban planning guidelines [or the legally binding physical development or zoning plan]. But from a policy perspective we want to provide room for this and grant permission that fitted within the juridical framework.” The residents then identified a location, on a small playground, for the small building (65 m2) and agreed that it should be designed in such a way that it I also aesthetically in harmony with its direct environment. However, the situation then got complicated, while all residents are supportive of the initiative, some other are not supportive of the location that was chosen and they claim that the process that was followed in picking this location was not transparent, and this results in a conflict (see contestation).
Aedis-Actiz Kenniscentrum Wonen-Zorg (2014), De Zorg Samen Buurt genereert energie, 5th article in series ‘lokale kracht in beeld’, accessed at 28th of July 2016: http://www.kcwz.nl/doc/lokale_kracht/Afl_5_de_zorg_samen_buurt_genereert_energie.pdf
Contestation was a very important element in this critical turning point. First the municipality had to decide if it was willing to support the initiative by giving permission for a building that did actually not fit within the regulatory framework of the municipality. That process included some contestation within the municipality. Henri Koolen explains how the request for permission to build was dealt with within the municipality. Form a certain perspective it was not obvious too support the idea to: “That question was asked to one of the councillors and then it was transferred to me. The first thing I did was talk to my colleagues in the social domain. Because in simple terms the question was: ‘Can we have a piece of land and a building permit’ and following our own principles I could only answer: ‘No’. Because it was not in accordance with the zoning regulations, there was a community centre that was only 150 meters away, it implied that a piece of green public space had to be sacrificed which contradicts with our ‘open and green spaces policy’ and we decided in the municipality that we actually want to reduce the amount of m2 of social property [public real estate that is used for social functions and purposes] in this city. So all the signs were red.” Henri realised that it was important that the municipality developed an understanding and agreement around the question if this initiative was really innovative and important indeed: “When I went to talk with my colleague from the social domain (..) I asked the question: ‘is this now actually something really substantially innovative within the social domain? Or is it just a great initiative of which we already have many, that could still be very good, but that may not justify that we will cast aside all kinds of policies. To cut a long story short, we agreed: No, this really is a fundamental innovation in the social domain. On that basis we advised the aldermen (councillor) to deal flexibly with the zoning and regulation to enable this socially innovative initiative.” Subsequently the municipality looked at possible locations and they identified locations that seemed realistic keeping in mind that some location had sewage and gas lines under it which made constructions on it very troublesome. The residents behind the initiative then choose the location (on the small playground) and the municipality requested them to mobilise support from the residents for making this possible.
The informal decision that the municipality intended to support the process of getting permission was taken in September / October 2015 and now (April 2016) the residents are still working on getting the commitment. As mentioned under co-production, the initiative is embedded in the neighbourhood association. This association is considered to be highly supported in the neighbourhood since there are 344 houses in Prinsenjagt 3 and more or less 290 households are a member of the neighbourhood association. However, this high-level of organisation could not prevent a conflict of interest within the resident’s population. Giving a permit to build the small meeting place is against the regulations as is explained. The opposing residents have informed the other residents and the municipality that they can simply take legal measures to stop the process of granting a permit. Henri sees this as a situation in which the municipality wants to put ambition over procedure, but then they are, paradoxically by residents, put back in their formal role as public institution in charge of regulating public life. As a reaction the residents that are behind the initiative try to play the mediating role by themselves. In February (see related events) the neighbourhood organization organised a general meeting of all members of the neighbourhood association in which they presented the location that they favoured (Prinsenjagt3.nl, 2016a). They identified this location based on talks with residents and the majority accepted the proposed location. Since there is no functioning new location yet, currently the residents use a method of ‘guest housing’, various resident’s open up their house for the activities and they do this in turns (Prinsenjagt3.nl, 2016b).
Henri Koolen explained that as a municipality they were, at first, not aware of the initiative ‘the caring neighbourhood’. Once they got to know it they identified it as a special project. When the residents asked for support in terms of acquiring permission for the construction of a new small building it was understood by Henri that this was a critical moment. Now they had a chance as a municipality to assess if such an initiative was so important that it would also create room for flexibly interpreting the rules in order to achieve social goals. It was expected that this could result in some internal resistance within the municipality, however that was hardly the case since it fitted within the social goals of the coalition agreement and it was approached in such a way that it would eventually fit nicely in the policy and juridical framework. Besides that, it seemed that the municipality also did foresee that there could be resistance within the community. They obviously did think that the project was viable, otherwise they would not have even bothered to make room for granting permission. However, they also very clearly agreed with the residents that the municipality would handle the permission within the municipality, but the residents had to mobilize the commitment by themselves.
As was mentioned under content, there are some similarities between this critical turning point and CTP3. About that CTP Henri Koolen explained that it is almost a matter of ‘waiting for conflicts to happen’ once a particular initiative is settled and that this does not mean that initiative is not successful or not viable it is a natural process. In this project the conflict emerged after a long time and had always been manageable within the initiative. But now it appeared to be rather substantial since it actually blocks an important project of this neighbourhood initiative. They can do this because of the legal vulnerability of this project. The reflection that Henri made in the context of CTP3 then again applies as he explained that those moments of resistance are not unique or new in resident’s initiatives. They existed before as well, but then it did not come as a surprise and the civil servant knew their role and felt comfortable in it. “Such conflicts are not new. Only then [when the government initiated neighbourhood projects with the community] the government, or the civil servant was the bad guy. And that situation was familiar to us as civil servants. So it somehow feels very familiar if people are angry at us. That is just how it is.” Now the conflicts emerge between the residents. In this case this implies that the civil servants that wanted to take up ‘a new role’ are forced back into their old role as is addressed under contestation.
This initiative shows that one of the basic assumption of co-creation in the living lab can really work. The government does not have to provide all social services to its citizens in a top-down manner, it can also facilitate and enable projects that are initiated at the grassroots level. Despite the challenges in the ‘caring neighbourhood’ project, it is a successful initiative that is still operational. It seems also relevant to monitor the process and learn how this could support the process of reducing the costs for health care which are currently very high and which are expected to rise with the aging population in the Netherlands. As Henri Koolen expressed it shows: “(..) yes, people can take care of themselves. We set aside millions of Euros for decentralisation in the social domain, for health care (primary care, long-term care, etc.). If initiatives like this work well, how could we organize it as such that we can save Euro’s in the long term and also strengthen the social basis or foundations of the society?”
Henri also drew another important lesson from this experience and it is related to conflicts. As is concluded from CTP 3, he believes that conflicts are an important element in a process of change. We should and cannot even avoid conflicts, but we can learn how to deal with them and he argues that we need rituals for that. He illustrates this by making an analogy to tribal customs that are practiced in some parts of the world: “In a documentary (..) I once saw that this tribe would meet with the entire community when conflicts arose and then they would do certain things together that would then result in settling in the conflict. This was portrayed as fantastic ritual to deal with conflicts. But actually, if you look at it with a distance, and I must say, I have a legal background, then you see that what we do in our courts is not that different. That is our ritual. And (..) you can also see residents’ or citizens’ participation in that way. In the ‘caring neighbourhood’, one party is now simply withdrawing itself from the ritual. (..) and then we need to come up with new rituals. And those new rituals are not there yet. And whether those new rituals will be based on personal interaction or whether we create a juridical base for it; that is actually a question of the second order.”
Concluding on this Henri also reflected on the type of social change that the living lab is engaging in and that the project that is subject of this CTP is also dealing with. Henri thinks intuitively that this type of movements (living lab) and projects (the ‘caring neighbourhood’) are introducing an era in which the ‘systems’ in our society (see learning in CTP3) will drastically change. He explained it: “So we actually started with developing a first system that simply determined what you should do, that is so to say the traditional bureaucracy. Then we got into a situation where you as an individual could comment on decisions of the system (..) and a step later it was agreed that you should have a say. And, I think that this is where we are mainly at now, we reached the situation that, as a citizen or individual you will be involved in the formulation of the answers. And I think that we are now moving to a situation where you as an individual or as a group, will be involved in the formulation of the questions. And that has consequences for the way the government will manifest itself. This will also affect the way big companies manifest itself. It also has consequences for how we organize our democracy, it will be restructured. I think that we are really at the beginning (..) and we are going to a situation in which the government will more facilitating and will bent itself around initiatives in a way that initiatives are enabled. (..) That implies that in the future it are the initiatives that will be leading.”
References
Aedis-Actiz Kenniscentrum Wonen-Zorg (2014), De Zorg Samen Buurt genereert energie, 5th article in series ‘lokale kracht in beeld’, accessed at 28th of July 2016: http://www.kcwz.nl/doc/lokale_kracht/Afl_5_de_zorg_samen_buurt_genereert_energie.pdf
Prinsenjagt3.nl (2016a), Uitnodiging bijzondere Algemene Ledenvergadering- 4 februari 2016- Herhuisvesting huiskamerproject ZorgSamenbuurt. Accessed at 28th of July 2016: http://www.prinsejagt3.nl/wp-content/uploads/Uitnodiging-ALV-4-februari.pdf
Prinsenjagt3.nl (2016b), Prinsenjagt 3 buurproject (neighbourhood project), accessed at 28th of July 2016: http://www.prinsejagt3.nl/buurtproject/
N.B. the title of and the link to this CTP have been changed on 28-08-2017
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