"It takes courage, creativity, and innovation, as well as cross-actor exchange at all levels, to revitalize dilapidated existing inner-city properties or the more common vacant buildings. In addition to the tasks anchored in the municipalities to address vacancies, this also requires extraordinary civic engagement and creativity to create livable places in Thuringia," said Thuringia's Minister of Infrastructure, Susanna Karawanskij.
In addition to actors from municipal and state administration, consultants and representatives of civil society were invited to work together on case studies – for example from Sömmerda, Erfurt-Stotternheim, Arnstadt, Suhl, Saalfeld and Apolda – in future workshops. It became clear how diverse vacancy can be. At the same time, new ideas and future steps were noted. Co-productions in urban development and vacancy activation were made tangible in this joint working process.
Line Bernstein from the association Quartiere für Alle e.V. said: „The transfer event has shown, as an innovative and creative process proposal for dealing with vacant properties, that project initiatives and administrative actors can be valuable partners for each other in solving crises.“
"The joint preparation process of the transfer event and the future workshop as an experimental format made co-production visible and tangible. In this way, we were able to make a further contribution to common-good-oriented real estate development and jointly search for sustainable and future-proof solutions," said Katrin Hitziggrad from the LeerGut-Agenten.
The fact that vacancy holds great opportunities and can represent added value for Thuringian cities and regions was also evident at the venues in the Open Factory in the Egon Eiermann Building and in the Kulturfabrik. The buildings, formerly used as textile factories, today offer plenty of space for exhibiting and working for the creative scene and the public.
In preparation for the event, the members of the Thuringian Action Alliance “Innenstädte mit Zukunft” were also involved, since the topics of the transfer event also strongly affect the network work of the alliance, in particular the corresponding working group (AG) “Leerstandsbewältigung”, which is led by the LeerGut agents.
All results of the event were mirrored and evaluated in the working group on vacancy management in order to derive concrete needs for action and measures. The working group discussed the results the day after the event at Werkbank Weimar, which represents another Thuringian example of community-oriented real estate development.
The experimental approach, implemented through the transfer events, represents an important component of the working group's efforts. In the long term, the insights gained are intended to feed into a guideline for managing vacant properties, which will reflect the current challenges and solutions of Thuringian municipalities and civil society in a practical and tangible way.
The transfer event format was already held for the 3rd time this year and represents the further development of the previous, constructive exchange of experience between the Free State and the Thuringian municipalities within the framework of the urban redevelopment conferences and the urban redevelopment tour of the TMIL.
The aim of the event series with an experimental character is to intensify the culture of dialogue between different stakeholders relevant to the city center.
The attached photo may be used for reporting. Source credit: Thomas Müller
