Metropolitan Research Institute

Metropolitan Research Institute, Budapest

Housing policy

ESPON URDICO project results

The ESPON URDICO project led by MRI (in consortium with Politecnico di Torino and University of Valencia) came to its end after one year of intensive work. The project analysed and compared the implementation of the urban dimension of Cohesion Policy in 8 selected stakeholder cities: Budapest, Florence, Ghent, Prague, Rotterdam, Strasbourg, Valencia and Warsaw, in the 2014-2020 and 2021-2027 programming period, through both quantitative and qualitative methods. The project explored the how the selected European cities implement the urban dimension of Cohesion Policy and utilize different EU funds and programmes to promote sustainable, inclusive, and resilient urban development. The research compared different governance models, funding synergies, long-term urban development strategies and institutional innovations across the different case study areas to identify both good practices and challenges, that can help to create a more effective multilevel urban governance and serve as potential inputs when planning the next MFF.

The last Steering Committee meeting of the project was held on 13 January in Rome, followed by the final conference of the project called “Understanding and Reinforcing the Urban Dimension in Cohesion Policy”. The speakers of the conference included researchers, representatives of stakeholder cities and municipal associations, representatives of the ESPON EGTC, Eurocities, policymakers, members of the European Commission and the European Parliament. During the keynote session of the conference, Iván Tosics presented the main results and key findings of the URDICO project. He emphasized that the reforms beginning with the 2014-2020 period strengthened the urban dimension of Cohesion Policy with new tools and compulsory involvement of cities through urban earmarking of EU funds. The partnership principle and subsidiarity allowed cities to become active participants in the Cohesion Policy programming and implementation, through specific roles, or implementing the Integrated Territorial Investment tool. Cities appreciated the new possibilities and introduced several institutional innovations. However, these positive developments are now threatened by the Multiannual Financial Framework proposal, which would centralize all decision-making powers to the national level, withdrawing all compulsory regulations which made Cohesion Policy a success for cities thus far. Judit Kálmán gave a presentation about the centralization processes in Hungary and its effects on Budapest during the “Evidence and policy recommendations” session of the conference. She highlighted that despite its economic and demographic weight within Hungary, Budapest operates in a highly centralized national framework compared to other stakeholder cities, and this does not only affect the planning and implementation of Cohesion Policy, but also the public administration and municipal finances of the city. The centralized context, the decline of municipal financial autonomy, the suspension of EU funds for Hungary, and the solidarity contribution resulted in serious financial problems for Budapest during the 2021-2027 programming period. Project reports will be published soon.

More information about the project: https://www.espon.eu/projects/urdico-urban-dimension-cohesion-policy-and-other-eu-programmes

More information about the final conference: https://www.espon.eu/events/understanding-and-reinforcing-urban-dimension-cohesion-policy

Iván Tosics’s Participation in the ENHR Seminar Series on Housing Related Impacts of the Pandemic

Ivan Tosics, one of the directors of MRI and vice chair of European Network for Housing Research chaired and moderated the first part of the opening plenary of the online ENHR seminar series on HOUSING RELATED IMPACTS OF THE PANDEMIC. Speakers included Peter Boelhouwer (chair of ENHR), Kim van Sparrentak (MEP), and Jose Miguel Calatayud (Arena for Journalism). There are more upcoming events in the course of the next two weeks, not to be missed!

For more information visit the ENHR webiste: https://enhr.net/online-seminars/

Source of featured photo: ENHR website

ComAct “Communities’ Taylored Actions for Energy Poverty Mitigation” programme has launched with the participation of MRI

In September 2020, our new H2020 project called ComAct – Communities’ Taylored Actions for Energy Poverty Mitigation took off. In the next three years, we will be working together with our partners from Bulgaria, North-Macedonia, Lithuania, and Ukraine on a new financial and technological renovation scheme for multi-apartment buildings focusing specifically on energy poverty in Central-Eastern Europe (CEE). Due to the very high homeownership rates in the region, the traditional schemes shaped by Western-European experiences, where energy poor people typically rent their homes, are hardly applicable here. Thus a new approach is needed, as there are a lot of people in CEE who live in their own apartments but still need assistance to renovate their homes. A comprehensive and effective program needs to cover the financial, technical, and communal aspects of renovation of multi-apartment buildings, therefore, ComAct combines all the three factors.

While the financial and technical factors are frequently discussed and studied, less work analyzed the communal aspects of the renovation of multi-apartment buildings. Thus we aim to unfold the obstacles of renovation stemming from the dynamics of the community, and we try to find ways to overcome these obstacles. These can include the mixed social composition of condominiums, differences in financial situation and interests, but also previous conflicts within the community. ComAct builds upon the idea, that with community building and good management of the community it is possible to include many of those condominiums in mainstream renovation programs that have been left out from these previously.

Within the framework of the pilot programs of ComAct, multi-apartment buildings will be renovated in all of the five partner countries. MRI works on the deep renovation of buildings in the third district of Budapest in cooperation with the municipality of Óbuda and local NGOs. We aim to find the complex technical-financial-communal solution, which makes deep renovation available for low-income households too. We want to change the widespread approach, according to which deep renovation is a luxury and can be available only for high-income groups. We believe that these overarching interventions have to be and can be made accessible also for communities affected or threatened by energy poverty.

The website of ComAct will be out soon, till then, check REELIH, our previous project related to energy poverty in the region at https://www.habitat.org/emea/stories/rely-reelih.

Source of photos: Municipality of Óbuda

HomeLab: National Workshop in Budapest

A national workshop was organised in Budapest in the framework of HomeLab project, with the participation of a broad range of actors and partners from the two Hungarian pilots; and with numerous public policy officials from across the country. The event titled “Integrated housing and employment services in the Social Rental Enterprise model”, co-organised by Metropolitan Research Institute and Budapest Institute, attracted 58 participants from across the country.