Greenstructure and Urban Planning

European Cooperation in the field of Scientific and Technical Research -

COST Action C11

COST ACTION C11 « GREENSTRUCTURES AND URBAN PLANNING »

MINUTES OF MEETINGS

2nd Management Committee meeting Sheffield (United Kingdom &endash; 4-5 Dec 2000)

Draft minutes - FRANCK CHARMAISON

1. The meeting started at 9 am in the University of Sheffield (Ranmoor Hall,

Shore Lane) in Sheffield. The participants were

welcomed by Anne Beer, national Delegate of United Kingdom to this Action

and organiser of both the MC meeting and the study tour which took place on

the previous day (Dec 3 2000).

2. Mr. Duhem, Chairman of COST Action C11, informed the participants of the

death of Mr. Duhme, national Delegate of Germany to COST C11. S. Pauleit

praised the work made by Mr. Duhme on the themes of interest of the Action.

3. Mr. Duhem then welcomed the new Delegates to the Action, who briefly

introduced their field of specialisation/ interest regarding COST C11.

Mr. Jorgensen (Norway): History of landscape architecture.

Mr. Jean Marie Halleux (Belgium): Sub-urbanisation process

Mr Philippe Hanocq (Belgium): also participant to COST C6

Mr. K. Zaleckis (Lithuania): (see attached presentation) indicated that one

of the two Delegates of Lithuania will attend each meeting.

Mr. Duhem also informed that Spain has nominated a new Delegate, Mrs Garcia

Nart, who had apologised not to be in a position to attend the meeting.

4. Approval of the agenda of the meeting:

The agenda was approved with the following modification. The presentation of

GIS made by ECUS would take place on early afternoon of Monday.

Going back to the site visit of Sunday, B. Duhem pointed out that

participants were impressed by the local Victorian architecture, as by the

relative little presence of signs of remains of the old industrial heritage.

5. Approval of the minutes:

The minutes of the Management Committee that took place in Brussels on 14-15

September 2000 were approved, with the following modification: the term

Greenbelt » should, in the case of the city of Helsinki, be replaced by the

term « Green fingers ».

6. Report from the Chairman:

B. Duhem emphasised that the main objective of this meeting was to set up

the Working Groups of the Action COST C11 and to prepare the next meeting in

Marseilles, where the Working Groups would hold their first plenary

meetings.

The point of monitoring of the Action was also raised, based on the document

COST 266/00, which had been distributed to participants before the meeting

(note: J. Laravoire, Delegate from France to the Technical Committee on UCE,

is in charge of monitoring COST Action C11 activities).

On the point of relation with the "Greenscom" FP5 Project, B. Duhem gave the

floor to S. Tjallingii, who explained that the Greenscom network was

constituted of partners from Finland, Sweden, Denmark, France and The

Netherlands, with 7 cities concerned. Therefore, the connection between COST

C11 and Greenscom had to be promoted, in order to provide more case studies

and to benefit from the ongoing researches made by Greenscom partners.

7. Report from the Secretariat:

F. Charmaison explained the procedure of setting up of meetings and of

reimbursement of Delegates (note: all related documents are available on

COST UCE Website at: http://www.vtt.fi/rte/projects/yki4/cost/costk.htm).

The importance of coordination between COST Action C11 and other ongoing

Actions in the field was once again stressed. The following participants to

COST C11 volunteered to try to improve contacts with the following Actions:

COST C6: P. Hanocq and L. Martincigh (Members)

COST C8: K. Atwell

COST C10: B. Duhem

+COST E12: S. Pauleit and U. Reeh

Regarding COST E12 (R&D in urban forestry in Europe), S. Pauleit mentioned

the issuing of a publication regarding the State of the Art in the field.

8. Scientific Program / Setting up of the Working Groups:

A large "tour de table" was then organized:

S. Pauleit presented the works made in Germany on the performance of

Greenstructures, the planning process using GIS data. A guide has already

been published. He indicated that the Working Groups should address the

following issues:

- Performance

- Policies

- Case studies

- Bibliography

-Glossary

L. Martincigh mentioned the importance of an holistic approach, going from

practice to theory, with the establishment of a guideline as a final result.

The work could be organized as a matrix:

- Type

- Performance all matching Offer and Demand

- Users

(See on this point the contribution from L. Martincigh, attachment 4, which

was tabled during the meeting).

M. Eronen proposed a "problem solving" type approach: which are the main

issues? The Greenstructures should be considered as a tool to :

- structure )

- manage ) the city

- enjoy )

in particular, it was important to have historical aspects also taken into

consideration.

K. Lapintie focused on ecological and social aspects and preferred a two

step approach, not looking first to what should be research but to what are

the researches in the field. He also emphasized on different aspects of

relevance: Cultural / Social / Historical / Ecological.

A. Beer stressed the importance of the Greenstructure as enlightenment for

the cities, an outcome of the Action being possibly: "What can

Greenstructures do for Cities?"

B. Malmbert pointed out the importance of having an Action open to new

members, and a limited/reasonalble number of Working Groups. He also made an

overall remark on the need of definition of "Greenstructure", which was a

task to be conducted by the whole group.

S. Tjallingii backed the request of limitation of the number of Working

Groups, and emphasized on:

- The importance of pertinent titles for the Working Groups.

- The agenda/ Scope of work of these Working Groups

- The performance assessment of Greenstructures

- The policy planning process

- The design and planning issues

Was also mentioned the importance to invite external experts to join the

Action and to keep "reasonable" the size of the Working Groups.

K. Jorgensen (NO) pointed out the interest of also setting up ad hoc Groups

(so-called "Editorial Boards") for the case studies.

On this point, F. Charmaison mentioned that a possibility for funding such

type of meetings on the allocation of funds available for the Action was

existing, providing, of course, the acceptance of the corresponding request.

The following possible Working Groups were then considered:

WG1: Typology / Quality / Performance

WG2: Policy Instruments (with regard to historical forms)

WG3: Case studies / Transversal Issues

The case studies will be constituted by the sum-up of analysis made during

the site visits made in connection with each of the Management Committee

meetings. In the case of Sheffield, for instance, participants found of

particular interest the "heritage lottery fund", set-up for financing the

process of presentation of green areas in the city.

9. Then the MC meeting was divided in three smaller meetings, each one

dedicated to one of the above issues.

Main conclusions:

- two issues are to be addressed in WG1, since the amount of knowledge is

too important to be handled properly in a single working group:

- environmental related topics

- socio-cultural related topics

- WG3 should focus less on ongoing researches and work on case studies. If

possible, each "case study" should be documented prior to the meeting with a

written contribution (15-20 pages).

A "task force" should be dedicated to the edition of case studies prior

publication. Open Issues:

- Comparative studies

- Mapping

- Guidelines for better / greener cities.

Regarding quality and typology, the following items were to be studied:

- social / cultural aspects

- access / realtion with everyday life

- economy on the areas

The MC decided to study the possibility of splitting up this WG1 into two

subgroups: WG1A and WG1B, the final aim of the works of WG1 a & b being the

creation of value in the city through the green areas.

- Chart for WG2:

Equity

Greenscom Þ Policy Instruments Þ Financing / Stimulation

Legislation / Guidelines On various levels

this in connection with ESDP (European Spatial Development Planning)

program. All COST C11 participating Countries should be involved in this

working group, since all of them have related policy instruments.

- Case studies / Major Issues

Two main items to be described:

- interesting focal points

-ongoing cases in the cities involved

For instance, urban fringe was considered as being a place of conflict, like

the re-use of brown fields and the overall issue of mobility in urban areas,

having some time potential connections with the policy of cities.

It was also planned to create, at a later stage in the Action, a working

group on design.

10. Proposed work Package:

1. Definition of a glossary (year 1)

2. WG "Urban Open Space & Performance" (environment, socio-eco) ( year 1,2)

3. WG "Policy and Implementation" (year 1,2,3,4)

4. WG "Planning / Design (year 3,4)

5. WG "Case studies comparison" (cities, mapping) (year 4)

Case studies will be dealt during phases 1,2,3 by corresponding WGs.

Task forces should furthermore be created for the following items:

- Glossary

- Major Issues

The first part of the Management Committee ended at 6.30 p.m. on December

4th, 2000 and resumed at 9 a.m. the following day.

11. Conclusions of the work in small groups:

Based on the analysis of the various subgroups and on further discussions,

B. Duhem stressed the following points:

General organisation of COST C11Action:

Delegate in charge:

TASK 1 Glossary (on website) A. BEER

TASK 2 Major Issues / Case Studies (on website) A. BEER with M. ERONEN

WG1 Qualities of Greenstructures

1A Ecological/ Physical S. PAULEIT

1B Human (Social / Economic) K. BJORNBERG

WG2 Policies U. ELLEFSEN

WG2 will later on focus on the guidelines for design.

The MC Meeting agreed to this proposed organisation of the work of COST C11.

Regarding the case studies, the following points were also agreed:

-1- Realisation for each of the meeting places, of a light document

describing general issues and, more specifically, illustrating COST C11