Brownfield remediation & greening

General Description

A brownfield site is regenerated through landscaping interventions and planting of indigenous species. The new setting allows for a variety of physical and recreational activities. The installed monitoring systems along with the informative signs serve educational purposes: Through the installed sign system, visitors are informed about animal and plant species located in the surrounding area. At the same time, the collected air quality and meteorological data offer better understanding of the intervention’s environmental impact.

Timeline to reach full potential

2-5 years

Co-benefits & spatial impact assessment

Co-creation roadmap

Lessons learnt

Co-creation process

Tailored Communication: Discussions on usability of facilities revealed that not everyone’s needs could be met, showing the need for a concise and tailored communication approach.
Managing Expectations: Co-implementation seemed difficult for construction of the solutions (except tree-planting or greening exercises), which shows the importance of defining expectations from the start and setting up creative exercises for the co-implementation phase

Implementation process

General

Need for Specialized Expertise: High levels of expertise were required both from the city staff (project team members) and from the external contractors.
On-time Specialized Expertise intervention: Including experts on biodiversity, spatial planners and legal experts since the early stages of the project is crucial.
Planning & Feasibility: Securing approvals in the early stages of the project, during preparation stage.
Efficient internal management: Good collaboration and interactive actions between municipality’s departments and teams are required.
GDPR legislation: Varying from country to country in Europe, legal restrictions on the matter can cause important challenges and delays. Therefore, it is highly recommended to perform a complete market analysis already during the preparation stage.
Cost management: Unforeseen inflation caused rise in costs for works, services & supplies. Anticipation actions, such as searching supplementary funding or other cost management mitigation actions need to be planned in advance.