Participation in collectively sold private renovations

Abstract

Several pilot projects have spawned an increasing number of schemes involving individuals in renovation. A well known and awarded (World Habitat Awards 2008) project is the “Wallisblok” also known as “De Dichterlijke Vrijheid”. This project involved the sale (for a symbolic amount) of a run down building block to a collective of future homeowners. The building block was in a poor technical condition and the collective owners had to (re)design and renovate the building block according to requirements set by the municipality. These requirements included both the quality of the renovation as well as the minimal investment. This scheme has been exported, copied and repeated due to its success. However, the schemes are different in several aspects, for example the price has never been as low as it was in the first project. In the evaluations that have been written on the projects and especially on the Wallisblok, several gains are mentioned. Amongst others, neighbourhood improvement, home and street quality improvement, personal control over housing quality, participation amongst owners, strengthening of neighbourhood bonds and collective (neighbourhood) maintenance are mentioned (Sour 2009). Moreover effects that touch on demographic characteristics of the neighbourhood (attracting high income new residents, Van Der Laan 2009), on reaching environmental goals (climate change, Van Hal 2009) and contribute to diminish general socio-economic problems in the neighbourhood. In this paper an overview of the stated effects and experiences is given and these are compared with the envisioned effects at the initiation of the project. The paper draws upon other (Dutch) evaluations and on literature that addresses similar effects. This paper is limited to a literature review focussing on the description of the project, its aims and effects. For the final conclusion, the effects of the project are put in perspective of scale and the competences of the collective that are necessary to create a successful project. Implementation possibilities of the scheme for use in more generalized housing and regeneration situations are mentioned keeping the limitations in mind. Thus the paper aims to give access to the characteristics of the project and to make an international interpretation of the scheme possible.