Urban planning – Page 2

The south of Luxembourg is marked by the heritage of the steel industry and mining. Large active and inactive industrial sites next to urban centres remind residents and visitors of the peak of heavy industry. Located in the south of Dudelange city centre, the Schmelz district was home to a steel mill until 2005. The 40-hectare site is now undergoing a major brownfield reconversion project.

Rationale for action

Following the steel crisis in the 1970’s, more and more steel mills closed. Since then, the ongoing structural change has also affected Luxembourg’s south. In 2005, the former Schmelz steel mill was closed, which created a 40-hectare industrial brownfield site next to the city centre. The municipality saw the opportunity and kick-started a process to convert the site into a new urban district.

Schmelz district during early 20th century. Source: City of Dudelange, 2019.

Objective

The central objective of the NeiSchmelz project is to construct a new district with housing, commercial and cultural areas connecting the districts of Italie and Schmelz to the city centre. Preserving the heritage of heavy industry is particularly important for the municipality. Therefore, the municipality intends to maintain the former industrial character, by preserving industrial artefacts such as the water tower and the floor plan of the factory buildings.

NeiSchmelz will offer approximately 1 000 new housing units. The new district should be multifunctional, mixed and attractive also for locals. By involving the Housing Fund (Fonds du Logement) in the development, housing will also be available for prices below market value, which will further promote a social mix.

The new district will have easy access to Dudelange city centre, to surrounding districts, to green recreation areas and to the national traffic infrastructure. In addition to existing railway lines for example, there will be new traffic infrastructure within the new district and towards the surrounding areas (pathways, bike lanes, roads).

Time frame

The development started in 2008 and is ongoing (2021). The participatory phase started back in 2009 and the interim use concept was developed in 2011. A decontamination study and negotiations between the steel company (Arcelor Mittal) and the state were finalised in 2016. Since then, urbanistic concepts are being developed and implemented.

Key players

City of Dudelange, Housing Fund (Fonds du Logement), Luxembourg state functions (environment and water management administration, public roads and bridges administration (all under the Ministry of sustainable development and Infrastructure), CFL (national railway company)), Luxembourg EcoInnovation Cluster, developers, architects, civil society (community and social enterprises) and private developers.

Positioning of the NeiSchmelz district in relation to Dudelange centre (in the upper half of the picture). Source: City of Dudelange, 2019.

Implementation steps and processes

After the former steel mill closed in 2005, the municipal administration issued a call for proposals in 2006 to gather ideas for future use of the site. In 2008, there was a decision to create a new urban district with a focus on housing. A national call for development proposals was launched in 2009. In 2010, the NeiSchmelz proposal was awarded and planners were contracted to develop the master plan for the district. In parallel, a concept to decontaminate the area was elaborated. In the meantime, an interim use concept was initiated and the master plan was finalised in 2012. Negotiations between the steel company, who owned the site, and the state finished in 2016, transferring ownership of the site to the state-owned Housing Fund.

Alongside implementation, a participatory process involving the public was organised. From 2009 to 2016, local residents and interest groups could incorporate their ideas for the interim use and final state of the conversion. This was achieved through information campaigns, multiple consultations and workshops. Presentations of the project highlight changes introduced through the public consultation procedure to illustrate to citizens how their contribution has influenced the project.

In order to develop the site, the municipal land-use plan (PAG) had to be changed. For the technical implementation, the city will rely on four so-called PAP (partial land-use plans). These act as building permits and were submitted for approval in late 2017.

Required resources

Since the project is implemented stepwise, the required resources cannot be specified. A key aspect for the project, however, was the acquisition of the site from the steel company.

Results

So far, there are few results of the conversion project. 1 000 new housing units will create living space for around 2 000 new residents. Additionally, there will be new commercial areas as well as public and semi-public areas for social and cultural exchange. A large area in the centre of the district will be for businesses, targeting start-ups and innovative enterprises. Building permits, in the form of partial land use plans for the new district were submitted for approval in late 2017 and approved in 2019.

Aerial view of the future district. Source: Fonds du Logement, 2019.

Experiences, success factors, risks

Reconversion provides the opportunity to bring new types of land use into an urban area. NeiSchmelz creates a new residential district with businesses and public spaces. At the same time, the project illustrates how cultural heritage from the steel industry can be preserved while changing the usage of the site.

This industrial reconversion is a large-scale project that benefits from multi-level governance arrangements. In particular for the negotiations with the globally acting industrial companies, it was important to involve a national player.

The project is similar in size to other conversion projects in Luxembourg. For most of these projects, the sheer size in relation to the immediate surroundings and existing urban fabric poses special challenges for planners and architects.

Conclusions

NeiSchmelz illustrates that participatory processes, if implemented thoughtfully, have an impact on the length of a planning process. Participation, however, is key to acceptance of the new project and should thus represent a central pillar in the planning process. A good project requires effort and time.

Contacts

Ms Eva Gottschalk, Chief planner of the City of Dudelange: Eva.Gottschalk@dudelange.lu

References

City of Dudelange, 2021: project website: http://www.dudelange.lu/fr/projets-urbains/projet-neischmelz

City of Dudelange, 2013: participation report: http://www.dudelange.lu/fr/Documents/2013_Neischmelz-Rapport.pdf

Public administrations are usually more reluctant to adopt processes based on new and innovative technologies than private actors. This is because these processes can have shortcomings or pitfalls that are not immediately apparent. Also, new processes can raise new questions and challenges for public decision-makers such as data security and protection against hacking. Public actors however must keep pace with the digitalisation in the private sector not to create bottlenecks for digitalisation in the country.

‘Géoportail’ (Geoportal) is an online platform providing and summarising geographic data for multiple user groups. Set up by the land register and topographic administration of the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, it was launched in 2011 to increase transparency, digitalising information and making it more accessible for users.

Different thematic sections in Géoportail.

Rationale for action

Geographic data used by public administrations is often not simply accessible to the public. Some data is classified as confidential, some is not confidential but is unavailable to the public. This can be due to missing platforms, complex query processes, etc. New communication technologies can make such data easily accessible.

Data often lie in different repositories without being coordinated and combined. Making them accessible, with a focus on standardising data types, data categories, metadata and so on, creates a database from which more than the public benefits.

The Géoportail was set up provide open source access to publicly owned, geographic information. Making this available follows the European Union policies in the INSPIRE directive (INfrastructure of SPatial InfoRmation in Europe) from 2007. By making data openly accessible, free to use and reuse, governance processes and decisions become more transparent for citizens.

Objective

The idea behind Géoportail is to harmonise public geodata from different institutions (i.e. the environment ministry and the ministry in charge of the land register). The online geodata system provides individual users, professional users and developers with multiple functionalities. Individuals can for example easily access cadastral, topographic information and also information on infrastructure, environment, tourism, land use plans. Information displayed on the Géoportail can be exported to either PNG or PDF format for individual users.

In addition to this, professionals and developers can use other functionalities the Géoportail provides. These are for example the applications of MAP API and MAP APIV3 that allows spatial information to be retrieved for the use on external websites, access aerial images, plan routes, track a surveying request and much more.

Not only the geodata is made available to the public by storing it in the Géoportail, it also assists state services by giving them additional information through a multi-level access system. For example, notaries in Luxembourg can query the full information of land owners on the land register, whereas the public would see only the name and post code of the owner.

Time Frame

2011 – ongoing (2021), constant updates

Key players

Ministries, especially the Ministry of the Interior, the Ministry of Energy and Spatial Planning, the Ministry of the Environment, Ministry of Agriculture, plus the land register and topographic administration, data suppliers and municipalities.

Implementation steps and processes

In 2010, development started, which was finalised January 2011 when the Géoportail was published. In May 2011, the application for mobile devices was released. Regular updates continue to improve the platform and introduce new functionalities, such as the possibility to measure distances and surfaces, introduced in 2015. Géoportail was implemented through tendering for the required services.

Results

Géoportail is accessible through the web. The modular platform can be used for multiple forms of spatial data. For the Tour de France 2017, Géoportail was used to show the route of the race in Luxembourg for example. It has also stored information on the road network and infrastructure, built-up environments, water courses, soil types, locations of public infrastructure, land register parcels, hunting areas, points of interest and much more. It recently incorporated points of interest from the Editus portal, the yellow pages in Luxembourg. The platform provides different information for different users. Private individuals can access all the above material and professionals working with geodata such as notaries for instance can access more data.

Following the reform of the spatial planning law in 2003 and the step-by-step finalisation of the PAG (local land-use plans), the portal also provides information on planned land-use. Municipalities must upload their local land-use plans onto the platform in a special format so the results of participation and planning processes are available to the public. The PAG are uploaded for each municipality so the entire country is covered.

Experiences, success factors, risks

Géoportail is a successful and user-friendly attempt to make public data accessible. It represents a platform that makes it possible to integrate any type of spatial data in the future to different user groups. It also permits for the integration of data on specific events such as the Tour de France.

Conclusion

Key to successful implementation of such an online platform is user-friendliness. A complicated portal risks becoming a ‘data dustbin’ where data is provided but not used. Simple design and layout are important. This applies not only for individuals who can export data in a common file format (PDF, PNG, JPG, etc.) but also professionals, who need to work with exported information (SHP, TIFF, GDB, etc.). Géoportail is also fully integrated into the OpenData Portal of Luxembourg, making it possible to easily amend or complement information.

Contact

E-mail address of the land register and topographic administration: support.geoportail@act.etat.lu

References

Géoportail website: https://www.geoportail.lu/en/

Website of the land register and topographic administration of the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg: https://act.public.lu/fr/index.html