Abstract

New Urbanity

Cities vs. Global Challenges

International Symposium, April 2012

Belgrade, Serbia

Urban Transform-abilitiesChisinau, Moldova – Self-Regulation as an alternative to institutionalized planning processes

The global upsurge of unplanned urban development and its various manifestations have opened the door to

challenging the norms of the modernist planning model. The principles of modernist planning mechanisms and

practices, regulatory systems expressed through zoning regulations, land use and urban coding can be seen

today as obsolete. The new and perhaps radical departure from the established methods and norms, the new

alternatives to conventional planning practices need to be developed that are based on learning from experiences

from self-regulated and unplanned urban areas. The unplanned developments need be seen not as an illness but

a part of the solution to the present and future urban problems and the role of the professionals involved, their

methods of work, level and form of involvement needs to be reexamined.

With the City of Chisinau in former Soviet Union as a starting point this paper discusses processes of self-

regulated urban transformations in relation to the inherited urban planning models dating from the Russian

colonial era as well as the Soviet planning system. The present planning is dysfunctional and disconnected from

realities of the context and I see this situation as an opportunity to instigate fundamental reforms in current

planning methodologies. In my paper I will examine and compare the empirical evidence from Chisinau based on

observation, site documentation in form of photographic evidence, official planning and legal documents,

transcripts from recorded interviews, written materials by other scholars dealing with related field of research, etc.

Parallel with this study I will juxtapose these findings and develop a critique of the top down modernist institutional

framework in planning that includes the zoning and land use practices.

Bojan Boric, Lecturer and PhD student

KTH School of Architecture, Royal Institute of Technology

Stockholm

Chisinau, Moldova – Self-Regulation as an alternative to institutionalised planning processes

The processes of transformation in Chisinau served as a case study within the masters level urban design studio

at the Royal institute of Technology School of Architecture in the fall semester 2011. The project has also been

inspired by my participation in the research project titled “New Urban Topologies” conducted during the

fall of 2010, organised by “Färgfarbiken” - art organization from Stockholm. Both the NUT project

and the subsequent KTH architecture school studio studio project have been sponsored by the

Swedish Institute. The main objective of the two-year long research was to through collaboration

with relevant organizations share experiences on the processes of urban transformations in

Stockholm and in Chissinau. Our two visits to Chisinau included series of on-site workshops,

meetings, lectures and interviews where we have taken an active role in discussions on the current

urban development processes and have met an array of decision makers, public interest groups,

individual citizens, art groups, urban planning consultancy organizations.

Currently, I am conducting further in debt research related to the nature of informal development and the

processes of the self-regulated urbanizations in relation to the established institutional frameworks for planning

cities. In my research I study the existing processes of urban development in cities where the tension between the

informal development and the institutional planning framework have produced new urban environments. The

objective of this work is to investigate opportunities for fundamental institutional reforms in planning.

In this paper my research discusses processes of self-regulated urban transformations in relation to the inherited

modernist planning dating from the Russian colonial era as well as the Soviet planning system. The remnants of

the rigid planning system is not functioning as it is disconnected from realities of the context. In order to be able to

intervene in cities for the public benefit there is a need for new knowledge based cross-disciplinary research that

addresses issues of contemporary urban development. This research needs be further tested against the

empirical evidence in the specific context. Today, there is still very little understanding on how and why most cities

transform out of control of planners and why. The issue of illegal and informal development is still largely

acknowledged as a major problem by governments and planners that seek cure in the traditional planning

practices based on the modernist planning heritage. The problem, however is not in the unplanned processes but

in the current structure of planning institutions that work within strict hierarchical systems and lack flexibility and

insight in the complex processes occurring in cities. In this paper I will extract the analytical and empirical findings

and studies of the relation between the institutional planning doctrine and the so called self-regulation and the

informal. The two concepts are often seen as separate and opposing processes but in reality the boundaries

between them are often in the grey zone. In this paper I make an attempt to research the informal development by

interpreting empirical evidence juxtaposed against the various critical perspectives from the related fields of urban

theory, Institutional theory (including economic theory) and urban governance.

My intent is not to romanticise the notion of the self-regulated urbanity, instead I aim to investigate the context

specific conditions and define the key paremeters for reform of the current planning processes. To be able to go

beyond the intitial appearances and presumptions it is neccessary to understand the terminologies in relation ot

the mechanisms of urban transformations that shape cities today.

The term self-regulated urbanism has been widely used in recent times and has also been discussed within a

dicsourse on top-down vs bottom-up urban development. The term is also associated withe the notion of the

unplanned and spontaneous development of cities coming from the micro scale. In this study I will attempt to

discuss these concepts from the perspective of my findings as defined by the notion of the context of city in

transition Chisinau, Moldavia. Therefore I will also focus on the meaning of the processes of ”transition” which

signifes the particular time frame for the particular economical, social and political processes of transformations.

According to Tahl Kaminer the city and it’s form are the manifestation of the processes within a society. He claims

that at any given time the city’s development is not posing the question of the planners preferences but the

structure of society itself. He goes further to define the polarity between the planning doctrines and defines them

according to the economic polarities. For example he associates the Keynesian central planning and regulated

city (Soviet Planning would fit the extreme end of this category) and on the opposite end of the spectrum he sees

the emergence of the infromal city as a direct result of the free-market economy.

The self-organising procesesses of urbanisation exist in every city in the world at variety degrees, often described

as spontaneous and chaotic, these processes are a part of complex, micro scale organised processes

conventionaly considered to be external to formal planning. For this reason most of the favelas around the world

are seen as results of self-organising processes where present planning system has failed it’s inhabitants and

where citizens themselves are changing the city. It is widely acepted now that these multiple and parallel

processes are essential to growth of cities where the informal and unplanned urban environment is the direct

result of the shortcomings of the planned city. Furthermore, Tahl Kaminer rightly points out that the unplanned is

also a form of a planned city, the difference being according to him is that what we call the ”planned city” stems

from a central institutional authority where the planning of the urban environment is conducted by professionals in

the field of planning. Thus, one can view the processes of self-organising urbanity as a form of planning in

progress by adopting to conditions as they come by non-professionals actors who directly engage with their local

context. Here the decisions are often made spontanously through processes of conflict resolution and

negotiations.

Another introguing point made by Tahl Kaminer is that urban development processess are based on a single,

pure ideology or a single economic system. However, we see today various degrees of hybrid value systems

within urban politics that change and shift in time affected among other things by fluctuations in the global

economy, politics, etc. For example, In a single city one could find the remnants of the central Soviet Planning

system along with the various forms of the market driven urban development and manifestations of informal city.

One may also find various forms of modernist, centralized and the more recent networked based institutional

frameworks, etc.

According to Michael Neuman, the centralized/autocratic system offers security and welfare while

the individuality is discouraged. He also states that in the pluralized/network society model there

are various groups that organize themselves according to their own interests but also with the aim

to ensure the protection of rights such as liberty and equality. Today, in the processes of rapidly

changing cities worldwide, the centralized and the network-based systems often coexist as parallel

systems, overlap, merge and mutate depending on the conditions of the local context, the global

political and economic changes. These have been proven to be unstable at any given moment and

can cause reversals in the processes of institutional reform. In Chisinau this unstable shifting

condition is manifested in the frequent shifts in politics between left and right leaning governments

as well as in the contested urban territories. These effects of these processes serve as the evidence

that the regulatory system of governance, written laws, and drawn plans do not adequately

correspond to the realities of the society in flux. The present institutions lack sense of the

direction, vision and tools and often the clear legal mandate to enforce the laws. The reality of the

daily life demands a very different adaptive approach based on simpler, flexible system of

governance but also a change in planning criteria and a new platform that engages with the daily

realities and learns from experiences. This restructuring from the top down may open the door for

new urban spaces, new experiences, unconventional possibilities.

In the context of Chisinau, where the process of ”transition” has lasted since 1991, this shifting between political

and economic systems is clearly reflected upon the way that the city has been changing during last twenty one

years and is still happening today. The processes of self-regulated urbanisation in Chisinau take many shapes

and are rooted in every segment of society and at any scale, starting from the micro level street markets and

illegal housing construction to the office, shopping centers, hotels, villas and luxurious residential estate

development at the macro scale. Here, the central planning processes and the self reguled urbanisation not only

run parallel with each other but are closely integrated and co-dependent. The self-regulated and the informal are

often associated with the creative, individualistic, bottom-up and spontanoeus efforts of citizenry. Today, however,

one can see that the self-regulated processes exist at various levels of the society and in the context of Chisinau

are mainly the result of economic processes. The self -organisation processes in Chisinau could also be

understood as an integral part of the various forms of bottom-up as well as the top-down, close to the center of

power planning processes, driven by shifting political power centers and economic interests. The informal top-

down political constructions have often limited the citizen’s right to the city in a new way. Therefore one may

conclude that the self-regulated and for that matter informal urbanisations have produced the hybrid top-down

decision making systems in planning. ”It could also be argued that the developers’ shopping centers and other

commercial projects are also examples of self-organisation, if we adhere to the definitiion of the unplanned as `not

planned by professional planners´” (Provoost 2010) The way the question needs to be formulated is not about the

simplistic formulation of the planned vs the unplanned city but how do we adress the reality of institutional

systems and how can the institutional planning system adress these complex constallations in an effective way. in

other words the individualistic, spontaneous and creative efforts of some citizens have also mutated to the diverse

forms of control of urban space often associated as negative results caused by the top-down strategies within the

centraly planned city. The current debate on the relation between the planned and unplanned and the idea that

thre is some sort of duality is limiting and simplistic explanation. I one is to relate these processes to the way

studies they are studied within the field of Institutional economics, the similar questions are posed and the

simplified definitions of dualitties between planning and non-planning within economic processes are dismissed. If

the cities within the context of the free market society are a direct result of the economic processes then the same

laws that guide the economic processes are reflected in the form of the city. Here it becomes the quesiton of

urban governance and the institutional framework at the macro scale but also the key question is what needs to

be reformed and how.

”A better question emerges, I suggest, when, rather than juxtaposing planning and markets, both are subsumed under the more overarching concept of governance. Then the question is no longer "to plan or not to plan", but: What is the most effective form (or mix of forms) of governance? Asking this question in the historical sense (i.e. in an ex post evaluation) we are undertaking institutional analysis; raising it in the context of addressing a policy issue or problem we are doing institutional design”. (Why Planning Vs. Markets Is An Oxymoron: Asking The Right Question,by E. R. Alexander)

The History of Chisinau - the Permanent State of Transition

Chissinau, the capital city of the poorest country in Europe which is now facing fresh possibilities for

urban transformations as the country is in the process of social and economic reforms. Moldavia is

a land locked country wedged between the Russian Federation on the north and the border of the

European Union member Rumania on the south. Chisinau is a unique city due to its long-standing

agricultural tradition, frequent changes in ideologies, complex sense of national identity and

shifting spheres of foreign influence. As the result Chisinau has been transforming rapidly for more

then a century and could be seen as an extreme or at least a very distinct example of the

processes of accelerated urban transformations during this relatively brief period of time. Today,

largely due to the effects of the dominant neoliberal-economic model introduced during the 90s,

the process of urban development appears to be out of control of civil authorities and local

communities.

The direction of the development of Moldavia and the processes of european integrations have

become more uncertain due to the political instability in the breakaway region of Transdnestria, a

conflict not likely to be resolved in the forseable future.

The population of Moldova today is about 4.3 million people. The capuital Chisinau has 752 thousand inhabitants

The urban population is stable or in mild decline rather then increasing in size.

With about 50% of population are employed in agriculture and about 54% of population living in rural areas

Moldova is among the least urbanised countries in Europé. The gray economy dominates the source of income

for the entire country. According to the estimates by the UNDP and other sources, the data on the extent of grey

economy varies between 30% to 50% of the total GDP. The official unemployment rate was only 1.5% in 1997,

while the unnoficial figures place unemployment at 25%. About the two-thirds of Moldovan live on US$18 per

month (UNDP,1998).

Moldova and its capital city Chisinau today are considered by EU to be in the process of

“Transition”. This expression may be interpreted as an intricate system of parallel processes of

change in the society. The shift from one system of the rule and governance to another. According to

Mikolaj Lewicki’s paper in the book Atlas of Transformation - the meaning of the word “transition” as it is

related to the recent transformations in eastern europé is the process in time that leads to clearly defined goal or

a clearly conceived future. The idea is that the process will lead to some form of modernisation. In the most

contemporary meaning of this word the goal is the shift to the west, joining the EU and NATO as well as the shift

from communism or centraly organised system to the democracy and the free market economy. This process of

shifting from soviet system of central government rule to another imported system of political and

urban governance within an unknown time frame has already lasted for twenty one years. Today, we

may ask the question if the transition is indeed a limited period of time and where is it leading? I believe that this

process today can be rather seen as a more permanent period of uncertain duration that defines

the intense and complex processes of change, political, economical, social and environmental. The

privatisations conducted as a result of transitional reforms have been one sided to the benefit of

the larger financial sector, local or international. The result is a weeaker civil society and therefore

slower process of democratisation. ”Common institutional reform strategies (restructuring, privatization,

decentralization, coordination) have had limited effectiveness, primarily because they have addressed only one

isolated element of the institutional field (structure, agency, or doctrine) and have not taken into account network-

wide effects (World Bank, 2005; Verstegen & King, 1998; Burtless, 1996). For example, privatization may improve

efficiency, but brings new inequities and externalities” (Neuman, 1996a, 1996b).

Transition is defined as an ideological shift from autocratic/centralized to a pluralized/networked model of government but it appears to be producing constantly mutating framework within a society leading to multiple and often unanticipated constalations that define shifts in urban

development. One could conclude that the process of the transition is a broader process not unique to

eastern Europé, it is present at various degrees in many parts of the world (including Sweden) where liberal

economic priniciples have been integrated into the local institutional framework. Market based decision making

processes permeate almost all societies today.

The planning processes, in Chisinau have mutated to certain form of hybrid centralized and at the same time chaotic, ambiguous and decentralized control that engages technocrats, beaurocrats, politicans and corporations, crony capitalists and shady individuals to establish a web of decision making processes. They together draw the most benefit from the combination of the well established existing planning doctrine and the self-organising processes of the market economy. The missing part in this equation is absence of the civil society and the lack of mechanisms to achieve appropriate balance.If seen from the perspective of the last two centuries, the present processes of urban transformation in Chisinau are merely a brief snapshot of time, representing only a moment in history of continuous, accelerated and dramatic changes caused by succession of regimes, foreign invasions, wars, colonialisation, experiments with various ideologies and changing sense of national identity.

Chisinau emerged as an agricultural provincial market town inhabited by Christians, Armenians and Jews. In 1812 it was integrated into Russian Empire as a new colonial capitol of the region of Bessarabia. During this period the city transformed thorugh the process of “modernization” and expansion. The formal grid with wide streets and rectangular organization of squares and institutions replaced the irregular village character. The blueprint of the new town plan was a transplanted plan that resembled many other new cities of the vast Russian Empire. During the later period of Soviet modernist planning, the transformation continued towards even more centralized process of urban development. The new masterplan by Alexiei Schusev, was an embodiment of the Soviet planning system with the new demolitions (especially during the 60s and 70s), this time period was marked by construction of new monuments, even broader avenues and large scale housing projects. This era represented the continuation of imposition of new imported ideological translplants and further attempt on formalization of life in the city. According to Virgil Paslauric Chisinau (Art Research in the Public Sphere) there are four significant and distinct

periods that influenced the establishment of the urban and institutional framework of contemporary Chisinau:

1. The Tsarist era, Bessarabyan Gubernyia within Russian Empire period between 1812-1918;

2. Integration in the Greater Romania, 1918-1940/1941-1944, Chisinau as an administrative center of the districts

of Lapusna, Nistru;

3. The soviet period when it became the capital of Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic within USSR.

4. Capital of an independent state, Transition stage 1991- present.

The institutional framework that shaped Chisinau during the twentieth century has been in constant

flux and has reflected the politics of the period, violent shifts between various political ideologies,

economic and cultural dominances. All of these social turmoils have left their indelible imprint on

today’s city, by creation of new layers of urban form but even more by clinical attempts to erase

the traces of previous eras. Today the dominant forces that shape the city are based on the forces

of the free market and the process of institutional and ideological transformations. In theory, the

democratic institutions are responsible for the protection of the public realm and as such are

expected to set the development priorities and influence the ways in which the public funds are

distributed. However, reality appears to be more complicated then that and the future appears less

certain. One may conclude that during Chisinaus history as well as today, each new era became a

testing ground of attempts to ”modernise” the society by technological import of the institutional

framework from abroad. This meant that the new system of values, governing systems were

repeatedly succeding each other without regard to the potentials for spontaneous development and

innovatiion by the local culture. Inherently tolerant and multicultural the citizens of Chisinau could

organize if allowed to develop a much more context specific bottom-up initiatives as a foundation

for the more flexible and just institutional framework.

Signinficant levels of adaptation, absorption and transformation to the imported process of

modernisation system had never chance to develop and today the weak central institutions, slow

process of democratisation coupled with the unpredictable market-based development have put

new pressures on the civil society to react and to self-organise. It is therefore important to

distinguish different manifestations of self-regulation proceses, those at the micro scale which

evolve through the efforts of ordinary citizens and/or civic organisations to shape their city and the

others which became integrated into the new power structures of transitional society.

Chisinau of today has been left to the unpredictable nature of market-based development. During

the post Soviet period the neoliberal economic and political model has been imported as an

economic means of strengthening democratic processes that were expected to blossom after the

fall of the Soviet Union. As in many other countries of the former Soviet States the reality of the

market forces has developed the opposite effect and that most of the population expected to see

from the democratic processes.

The top-down based planning practices fit very well within the neoliberal system of economical and political

influence. The conventional planning institutions largely bypass the broader public interests in countries affected

by the market driven economic reforms such as Moldavia. Another important issue is that historically modernist

planning has erased much of the local traditional knowledge of urban development and built culture that has

evolved through time. In the similar fashion the local economies are also forcefully transformed by the imposition

of the external economic doctrines and political ideologies. This is evident in the way the urban spaces abruptly

changed especially during the course of last twenty years in Chisinau. Just as the modernist planning methods

the neoliberal economic model has been ruthlessly applied worldwide without the regard to the needs and

specificities of the place.

Importance of Institutional Innovation

The fundamenthal questions to be posed today that could help investigate the procesees of

development of the future practice:

-The role and the degree and effectiveness of the Institutional framework, The level and means of

government intervention the role of the public and the private intitiative.

-On what platform is the qualitative basis of ”good urban” environment establsihed and to whose

benefit.

-The importance of the context in the globalised world. What may be considered a universal

principal and to what extent are the local specificities more effective.

- How and by whom and on which principles is the dialogue between different actors establsihed.

How to maintain the balance?

-How to take advantage of potential potential benefits and resolve the problems of the self-regulated urban

processes: spontaneity, vitality, individuality vs. imbalance between various interests and dominance of the

financial sector?

The current model of urban planning and urban regulations has evolved as the result of the

emergence of modernity and the machine age whose origins may be traced further back to the age

of colonization and the conquest of the new world. Historicaly, the singular homogenous and

institutionalized planning doctrine has been exported worldwide from Europé to the Americas, the

colonies in Asia and Africa. Today, in the age of globalization similar process are manifested

through the rapid export of the political and economic system of market economy that has equaly

devastating effects on the local populations and urban space.

”A study on planning in one metropolitan region revealed that the repeated importation of ideas from abroad,

which were inserted into a new milieu in ways that were not culturally or institutionally responsive over 150 years

had the reverse effect of retarding or hindering, rather than stimulating, the development of planning

tools, processes, and organizations. As a consequence, the effective performance of local institutions was

inhibited (Neuman, 1996a, 1996b)”. The time is now to acknowledge the potential benefits of local knowledge

and experience as key factors for implementation of better performance of reformed institutional systems based

on local knowledge and innovation. ”….institutions perform more effectively when they innovate based on local

knowledge and practices instead of imports, is a proposition ripe for empirical testing”. (Neuman, 1996a, 1996b).

According to the UNDP report (Chisinau Municipality Development Project, 2006), the public administration of the

Chisinau Municipality Public Adminisntration is based on a group of legal acts such as the Law of special Status

of Municipality and the Law of Local public Admininstration. The Chisinau Municipality consists of a group of

territorial-administrative units: The city of Chisinau (divided in five districts), six urban mayoralities, and 26 rural

localities represented by 11 mayoralties. All terriotial-administrative organisations except the Chisinau city enjoy

local autonomy in regards to the finances, public services, etc. The same report further describes the ambiguity of

the transitional governance structure still in flux and process of reform.

” As new draft Law of special status of Chisinau is not yet approved, there are many contradictions and

discrepancies between different legislative acts that regulate the public administration of Chisinau Municipality. In

the same context, the organizational structure of Chisinau Municipality Mayoralty is an inertial product of

former Soviet system and already several years is subject of reorganization attempts”( UNDP report 2006)

UNDP report identifies the main proplems that impede the implementation of development plans by the city as

existence of the “three gaps” within an institutional system:

-”The management gap” .The public sector is blamed because of the lack of skills, poor performance in setting up

objectives, poor policy design and execution, lack of coordination between agencies and ”excesive reliance on

law and authority for getting things done”.

-”The comprehension gap”. The report point out to the public servants lack of understanding of the relation

between the current administrative processes and possible advancements in public management. The report

recommends necesity of reform towards more effective management system.

-“The confidence gap” is reflected through the distrust between diverse stakeholders within and oputside of the

system, the general public, private actors, the government, etc.

The most planning problems and contradictions in Chisinau are the result of confliciting definitions within the legal

framework, “the most visible problems relate to the enforcement of the legal framework on urbanism, but many of

these problems have their roots in the legal framework. One of the key problems is the fact that the legal

framework on urban planning does not correlate with other laws in the field of local public administration

(especially the new laws on local public administration adopted in December 2006).

(the Legislation and analysis- NALAS report)

During the period between 2002 -2006 UNDP assisted the Chisinau Minicipality in development of the General

Urban Plan 2025 (approved in March 2007). By projecting the conventional modernist planning tool in form of

Land Zoning Regulations to be the principal guidelines within the current strategic plan. The new regulations have

not presented an innovative set of guidelines that fit the already transformed urban environment and thus

perpetuates the practice of inappropriate technology as defined by Micheal Neuman.

The zoning regulations in their present form are not responding to the current processes of already transformed

and appropriated land uses. This dychotomy between the rules and the daily reality creates a state of permanent

illegality. Besides the process of changing zoning regulations, obtaining the permits is overly beauracratic and

time consuming. For example it takes 180 days for approval of zoning change and the process of obtainining a

building permit procedure has 30 stages and takes 292 days (add reference) . For this reason there is an

immence discrepancy between the documents with the defined zoning laws juxtaposed with the urban reality

which has produced it’s own multiple and complex system of functional adjacences. Chisinau urban development

has a separate life of it’s own outside the present legal framework.

“Zoning is based on the idea of segregating land uses from one another, an anathema to the very idea of a city,

which is to bring people and uses together. Zoning has turned out to be a classic case of inappropriate

technology. Appropriate technology illustrates that there is not one rule, indeed not one structure, process, or

doctrine that applies in all circumstances in deciding on the aptness of the transfer” (Neuman 1996)

The urban complexity produced by spontaneous urbanizations, is evident in many areas left develop on their own

in Chisinau. However, this proposition is not without controversy since there are often disputes and conflicts

arising between different users where there is no common basis upon which the ground rules can be established.

Whether successful or not the evolution of urban space in Chisinau rarely corresponds with the existing zoning

rules. Could the more clear vision of the future of Chisinau produce more effective and simpler system or urban

regulations while the legal reforms are being developed. This transitional instability provides an opportunity for a

live urban laboratory where new possibilities for more interactive practice based knowledge can be developed.

These experiences could then be used to improve laws and planning methodologies.

The legal reform processes are not complete and it’s because of that there are a lot of uncertainties and overlaps

between jurisdictions, repsonsibilities among various administrative units and agencies. The most critical issues

appears to be the lack of financial autonomy of Chisinau municipality which is perpetualy underfunded. ”Though

Chisinau municipality generates about a half of the country’s fiscal revenues, the municipality has no power to use

all financial revenues generated locally for the maintenance and the development of infrastructure and services.

In addition, there is a considerable level of uncertainty regarding the annual amount of transfers from the Central

Government to cover the increased expenditures. This is creating difficulties in planning and implementing

medium term capital investments. At least two factors affect the future revenues’ trends: (a) a weak financial

management capacity, including control of the revenue base and (b)

accrual accounting is not yet adopted”. (UNDP report 2006)

Even though the report acknowledges that the processes of decentralization in Moldova are rather week and that

there is a general lack of fiscal autonomy, it makes a future recommendation for the more ”modern” models of

urban governance, such as ”participatory budgeting, municipal asset management or multi annual budgeting in

coordination with the capital investment program”.

The merging of Public and Private Institutional frameworks – the example of IMP Chisinau Project

IMP Chisinau Project is an a municipal Institution providing urban planning and architecture consultancy which

provides services to the Town Hall through the General Planning Deaprtment. This is not a unique case as there

are other similar publicaly owned organisations, such as ”INCP Urbanproject” that provide services for the private

development projects. Officialy the Chisinau Project is described as a public organisation that functions according

to the principles of ”self management”. It provides services such as general urban plans, detailed plans,

engineering networks planning, infrastructure networks, architectural design services, land surveys, urban

analysis, etc. The clients of this organisation are both public, such as municipality and private developers and real

estate investment companies. This complicated role with much potential for conflict of interest seems to be key in

determining the planning processes in the city. Such an ambiguious professional role in between public and

private realm well depict the nature of processes of transition where the week processes of restructuring of the

legal structure of society are coupled with new hybrid frameworks that combine remnants of the soviet institutions

and the market driven self regulated development. In this way the public institution plays a double role by

presenting themselves as serving the interest of the public while at the same time being commited to the interests

of a private investor. In the country where any capital investment is extemely welcome such dual role can be

complicated by the often conflicting interests between the public and private sector. Through the series of case

studies I will attempt to describe the current planning processes and th role institutions play within those

processes.

Public participation

The Chisinau Municipality has established a new forum for open public debate, Sustainable Urban Development

and public debate forum. The Citizen Center, an institution established within a city hall manages, organises and

publicly distributes information about these events where various stakeholders, such as executive officials of the

municipality, political parties’ leaders, NGOs, civil society representatives, and media hold debates on urban

development issues. However, the UNDP report states that there are mixed results regarding the implementation

of this project: ”Despite a large consensus and commitments of all stakeholders, the tactics of implementation is

facing serious difficulties and efficiency problems…”(UNDP Report 2006)

The following are the findings of the NALAS report - Legislation and Analysis: ”The consultation of the population during the elaboration and approval of the planning documentation is regulated by the law on the principles of urbanism and by the regulation approved by the government’s decision on the consultation of the population in the process of expansion and approval of the spatial and urban planning documentation. The public is involved before the process even starts as well as during the process. The consultation begins with informing the public about the intention to start the planning process and ends with the approval of the respective documentation ofspatial and urban planning. The public is involved by way of organised public hearings. If the documentation is more complex, the consultation of the population can be done through research about urban sociology, interviews, questionnaires, etc.”

My findings in this case show different picture, perhaps more in tune with the UNDP report. Even if the law may

be in place it does not mean that it will be properly implemented. According to Oberliht a local NGO’s

(http://chisineu.wordpress.com/2012/02/29/planul-urbanistic-zonal/), the public participation is not a signinficant

element in decision making process. Rather than the integrated and effective part of the planning process It is an

orchestrated and controled process reduced to a level of formality. The in-debt and constructive public debate is

virtualy non-existent during these presentations. The events are pourly organised, not well attended and

advertised, they serve only to formalize decisions already made and to satisfy the legal procedure.

” Today, I was present (February 29, 2012) at one of the public consultations organized at Riscani District Court in which the Town Planning presented a new urban plan for the area http://chisinau.md/public/files/planuri/PREZENTAREA_PUZ_FINAL_ro.pdfIt is hard to describe what I saw at the public consultation. Someone had invited a class of students from a school in Chisinau that, besides a few people who could be counted on fingers, formed the entire audience.A collaborator of Chisinauproiect has read the three documents, in a mechanical way, then the institute's director, tried to explain the general features of this document (which should follow the General Urban Plan in 2007 and which in turn has serious problems: for example future Cantemir Blvd in Chisinau).There were very few reactions from the audience towards the content of RCP, only one of the 20 students present

expressed his opinion about the potential loss of jobs for the drivers of informal minibuses (which will be eliminated until 2025). …some of architect attending the meeting was surprised by the aura of 'enthusiasm' present in the room. The same architect has noted that there were not any independent specialists from various fields present in the room to discuss and analyze the material presented.After half an hour of discussion, the secretary, who made notes in her notebook, put the book under his arm and sat there until the end of the meeting, he stopped making further records of the problems mentioned by those present in the room.At one point the group of high school students rose from their seats to go….then almost simultaneously Architecture and Urban Planning Department representatives concluded the discussion, invited the audience to come to Chisinauproiect (or website of Municipality)….In conclusion it seems that we are dealing with a staged formality of the Department of Architecture and Urbanism in Chisinau, the talks were held just because they or international bodies are require by law to provide transparency of decision making process.It is certain that unfortunately only 1% of the population of this city is aware of plans by the City Hall, and we must ask ourselves as to why everything happens as it happens. Tomorrow (March 1, 2012) will be held the second day of hearings”.

If most of the planning decisions are made without or with limited public participation, then the legitimacy of such

acts as well as the legal framework resulting form such processes (inclduing General Urban Plan) may also be

regarded ilegitimate by those excluded from such processes.

Chisinau Central Market – Self-Regulated urbanity contributing to formalization of urban space

The central market is a municipal company founded in 1994 as legal entity under name IM Central Market. The

company has it’s own bank accounts, operates independently on the principles of self-management and full self-

financing. The company is responsible for the results of it’s work to it’s partners, banks and the state.

Furthermore, it’s main activities are, the sale and storage of food and consumer goods to individuals and

businesses, Wholesale trade, Public Catering, Food testing and analysis. In addition a significant section of the

company services cantines for undergraduate school within a city center. The sources of information in this

reasearch come mainly from three sources, the interviews with the architects/planners from the ”Chisinau Project”

who are responsible for the detailed plan of the market area, the texts from the recently published book Art

Research in the Public Sphere as well as my own on-site observations and photographic evidence.

Central Market in the center of Chisinau is an open air market located in the historic center of the city.

This lively and colorfull market sells mainly localy grown agricultural produce. In the process of transition, this

market has seen effects of free market driven self-regulation principles characterized by decentralization of pulic

sphere and privatization of public assets. The processes of change on this site show how an array of private

economic interests can be closely related to the transformations of the Institutional framework of city as well as to

how the self-regulation can be a cause for the increase in control of urban space and therefore reinforce the top-

down processes in decision making. It also shows that the traditional modernist system of values and planning

methods and tools are disfunctional and are misused in the face of the present urban processes. The sequence of

events leading to the transformation of this site are the result of the intitial market driven informal actions that

have not included the long term anticipation of events but have been a result of the need to remedy the

consequences of previous decisions which were intitiated as the step towards opening up of the economic self-

regulation and the free market economics. As a consequence the series of events and resulting spntaneous

spatial transformations have been seen as the serious urban problem and have served as an excuse to remove

the central market from the city center. This process called urban ”clean up” is an attempt by city authorities to

further formalize and establsih control of the city center. The current market facilities, which are today open to the

street and to the public are to be in the future replaced by an enclosed shopping center big box type structure that

would ”stabilize”, ”clean”, and ”sanitize” the area from typicaly urban conditions of congestion, chaos and

overcrowding. The proposed new parking structures are to be constructed to serve new users as well as to

ensure that the street selling is not possible any more.

The market has exhisted for more then a century and has historicaly been a place where farmers from the

surrounding villages sold their products directly to the cities inhabitants. As of 2004, parts of the market were

divided in smaller units, privatized and handed over to the control of resellers who then began to control prices by

bying goods from farmers and then selling the produce for the higher price on the market. (Art Research in the

Public Sphere, 2011) According to Project Chisinau, there are areas in the inner section of the market that were

privitised in the period between 1994-2010. This situation, completely driven by economic interests has caused

the spill over of sale of goods onto the surrounding streets as the local farmers opted to sell their produce for the

fair price out on the street. This condition has caused the chaos on the streets surrounding the market with

informal sellers, cars and shoppers slowing the pasage of traffic and crowding the streets. This condition has

been seen by the city as unsustainable and unsanitary, the remedy being the complete removal of the market

from the city core and construction of the controlled and enclosed structure that would completely erradicate the

open public character of this open public space. My own assesment of the sitution is that even though the urban

chaos was present on the site it was apparent that this pressure on the area generated a varied and active

content which in many ways represents everything urban, intense, full of life. The system of values within the

planning profession maintaines the norms and the same systems of values aimed at controling and separating

uses have already been seen as failures in the past. These norms in this context are used as a platform to

remedy the present urban condition caused by another imposed condition, the privatization of public space and

forces of the free market.

The new detailed urban plan is designed by Project Chisinau. The project will include the construction of

business/commercial center(15-16 stories), hotel complex, ofice center, multi-storeyed parking and two

underground parking areas. The project is to be completed by 2025 and the plans also include ”reorganisation of

the neighborhoods adjoining the central market”. The project is based on the assesment of the conditions of the

site. The planners, acting upon their best professional judgment have determined that the the area suffers from a

series of ”disfunctionalities”. According to them, the area is unsanitary, overcrowded, the number of automobiles

is much greater than the street capacity allows, and there is a lack of ”architectural-urban integrity”. They also

acknowledge that the already privatised inner court area of the market is posing a problem since it is harder to

control and change.

This almost clinical approach is wrapped under the agenda of creating a greater ”public good ”. In order to to

satisfy the needs of the newly established power elites, the same old planning methods and ideologies are

selectivly implemented. In this case the the street vendors, ordinary peasants and other ordinary people

benefiting from the market are pushed out of the picture. Such serious miscalculations set the stage for long

lasting negative consequences for the people in the city.

The process of Legalization as an urban tool

The present ambiguities in the legal framework and selective tolerance towards some forms of

illegal construction allow authorities to establish a permanent state of tension and control by

maintaining the sense of instability among the population since the ilegaly obtained “privilege” can

be taken away at any moment. One could relate this idea as the metaphor for disciplining and

controlling of the urban space through Foucalt’s critique of institutionalization of society through

spatial organization but also of more psychologically rather then physical methods of restraint.

(Discipline and Punish)

(NALAS report)”some cases of illegal construction of objects (without proper permission, infringement of building norms and rules, inefficient use of the land...) have been observed. The legal framework concerning the legalisation ofthe informal settlements is poorly developed and there are no laws in preparation on this issue.The Ministry of Constructions and Territory Development (MCTD) adopted Ordinance No. 20 on 05.02.2009 for measures to reduce the number of unauthorised buildings. This ordinance stipulates that it is forbidden to carry out technical expertise with the purpose of legalising unauthorised buildings (built without certificates of urbanismand building permits). The ordinance also emphasizes that it is forbidden to issue a certificate of urbanism for the establishment of the urban regime (or similar acts) with the purpose of legalising the constructions edified without authorisation. The local governments are also advised to intensify the control on how their sub-entitiesobserve the legislation in the field of urbanism and territorial development.”

(NALAS report)”The planning legislation is inconsistent with the additional laws supporting the planning process.The country does not suffer from many informal settlements. Particular measures are undertaken to deal with informal settlements. However, there is no intent to adopt a law for the legalisation of these settlements.

According to information from the “Chisinau Project” the legislation stipulates the demolition of all illegal

construction. However, in practice all is negotiable and the necessary permit documents can sometimes be

obtained afterwards. Even when the owners build the structure and receive permits afterwards, they continue to

make further modifications. In 2011 there were 400 illegaly built objects of “all types and functions” and only 7

were demolished. Majority of these “interventions” are additions, to and adaptations of existing buildings

The amount of fines for illegal construction charged by the municipality last year is about one million lei (64,000

euro) Despite this the State Construction Inspection complain that local authorities continue to issue building

permits for projects which are not in compliance with the General Urban Plans. The courts often delay the

examination of cases of unauthorized construction, apply symbolic fines or, in some cases, legalize buildings

without any fines. Many of the buildings are located on the public land. As a remdy to the issue the State

Construction Inspection Agency proposes the increase of fines for illegal construction and further elaboration of

the legislation that regulates construction, demolition of illegal construction. The Valea Morilor is a major urban

park in the city center with the most illegally constructed objects in the city. Some of its areas have been

transformed by residential buildings. There used to be a lake in the middle of the parkwhich has been dried out

years ago and the remains of the mamooth have been discovered in the ground under the lake. There are

roumors that a luxury housing or a hotel is to be built in the middle of this lake but it’s not clear right now what the

future will bring.

Rigght now there are about 100 houses built in the park and even though the decision was made by the Town hall

to tear down these houses only 5 have been demolished since 2007. Allegedly the complications in the legal

process are due to difficulty in identifying the owners and the autorities are not allowed to prepare reports in the

absence of the owners. There are also reports on tacit agreements with some officials from the local government

or the state building inspecion who obtain the necessary documents to the violators. It is much easier to obtain

the permit documents after the construction. The processof lefalization appears to be informal and is in itself not

regulated by law. However, the process of legalization exists and the procedure is based on few steps, first the

State Building Inspection prepares a report, issues a fine certificate (2-3000 Lei for individuials and 7-9000 Lei for

legal persons) this is normaly followed by the final acceptance and the formal legalization of the project.

Currently the structure of decision making in the urban sphere is based on the highly hierarchical

model but at the same time, this model is not functional and the decision makers often are either

influenced by various powerful financial organizations and individuals or are unable to effectively

implement the existing institutional mechanisms to make improvements for the sake of general

public interest.

The Housing Development – the market driven planning system

Most housing in Chisinau is the old Soviet era apartment building and high rise developments fom 50 and 60’s

there is also a substantial stock of the detached single family houses in the city center area. Most urban residents

lived in the Soviet type high rise buildings. After independence residents were offered an opportunity to purchase

appartments they lived in at very low costs. Since the 90’s nearly all housing has been privatised and with that

emerged an active real estate market (Emerging Housing Markets).

The housing market researchers who studied the real estate price development depending on the standard

factors have determined that there is no substantial difference in the patterns of land price market values as they

exist in the ”developed and stable” markets within the EU. The central locations with good local amenities,

connections, etc are more expensive then in the perifery of the city.

”It is quite remarkable that such forces should be so clearly observed amid the confused and chaotic conditionsof an economy relying on old central planning mechanisms, new market mechanisms,and elements of corruption and crony capitalism”. (Emerging Housing Markets)

The current detailed plans presented by Chisinau Project are based on the grandiose utopian

visions reminiscent to a combination of the Soviet planning mass housing projects and glossy

images of Dubai skyline. At the same time many spaces in the city is littered by abandoned

industial buildings, cultural centers, empty lots. There is a remarqable contrast between the newly

built luxury housing developments and the abandoned areas of the city. Many new projects are the

result of public/private partnerships that come from the trade off commonly accomplished through

the mutual contractual agreement between the municipal organizations and the private investors.

For example, the municipaility provides land for the development and in return the developer may

construct certain public functions and allow for low rents for a number of municipal employees, etc.

The same consultancies (such as Chisinau Project) set guidelines for zoning, draw detailed plans

and prepare architectural drawings for the investor. Such transactions and deals are considered to

be legaly acceptable while the bottom up approporations of urban space are more difficult to

legalize.

Unlike many other transitional cities in South and Eastern Europé, Chisinau does not have an extensive informal

housing settlements as there is no great population increase that would place demand on housing. However, the

micro-scale, self-build modifications of the existing buildings and streets are widely present as well as are many

other forms of breaches of formal zoning regulations at all levels. There are many facades in a city that have been

partialy renovated, indicating the extent of the private residences within a colective surface of the street frontages.

There is an abundance of illegal additions in shape of rooms, balconies, shops, basements, car washes in the

middle of the street. All scales of commercial contents have penetrated the otherwise rigid system of zoning rules.

The uniformity of apartment block buildings has been transformed by individual actions of inhabitants to suite their

personal needs. Partialy due to the lack of enforcement, these widespread micro-scale interventions have added

a diverse character to the city landscape and have achieved a profusion of small scale commercial activities by

violating the zoning regulations. The self-organised acts by the inhabitants who transformed buildings and urban

space through these actions have allowed new spatial qualities and activities to take form.

Garage/House – A potential from of urban village

As mentioned earlier, in the recent years the land values and real estate prices have been going up in the areas

close to the city center. As a result the processes of housing market the land values in some locations has also

increased. This process has instigated an illegal construction of whole villages on top of these garage structures. I

have visited one of these emerging parking garage/villages belonging to the ”Stauceni Village” in Riscani District.

This spontanous settlement is a very intereseting case with potential for the self-regulated, bottom up intitiatives

by inhabitants to convert the existing inexpensive urban structures into small scale housing and to use the land in

a more efficient way. The resulting smaller scale types of slef built housing structures are not well represented in

the overall range of housing options in Chisinau. However, they could represent a viable option for the low to

medium level income population.

Such recently converted of one-level garage complexes belong to the communal housing associations from early

90’s. The garage structures were built according to the Soviet planning standards and the ”General Urban Plan”

from '89 in neighborhoods with multi-storeyed buildings.

This particular area I visited belongs to owner cooperatives built on the public land. It’s official name is ГСК-20

(гаражно-строительный кооператив) meaning garage-constructive cooperative.

It is possible to buy a one level garage with the basement for about 4-5000US dollars. Many owners have illegaly

built one or two extra stories on top of the garage structures. Ther are 3 types of garages: garages with one level

with a basement that go for 5-6000$, garages with one level with 2 basements (6-8000$), and garages with one

level, an attic and a basement (10-15000$).

Some garages have kept their functions at the bottom level but some have been converted to other uses, such as

car repair shops. There is electricity in the village but no water. According to the zoning regulations this area is an

industrial zone, the construction of homes or conversion of garages to other uses is not allowed. The existing auto

repair shops operate without permits.

The resulting shape of the village is characterized by the structured and linear arrangement in plan, due to the

original parking organisations but the housing additions, each different in size, form and material have wild wines

growing on the facades, these characteristics betray the informal character of the village. The scale of the street is

narrow, just wide enough to allow two cars to pass by each other and the intimate nature of the street has a

human scale. A couple of years ago it was possible to legalize the already constructed houses but this is not

allowed any longer. The process of legalization was never established as a legal mechanism but was apparently

randomly applied during the certain periods of time. The villages constructed on these sites, however correspond

well with the needs and the budgets of the local population since the apartments in the city center average at 614

euros per square meter. The character of the settlement and the possibility for the transformation and re-use of

the parking areas if legalized and with proper infrastructure could create new urban environments throughout the

the city. Furthermore, the evolving and adaptable urbanisation stemming from bottom-up has existed through

centuries and could be allowed to coexist with other tyoes of housing options within a city. Such evolutionary

processes of urban space rather then the imposed be more encouraged by planners and decision makers.

Today the dominant forces that shape the city are based on the forces of the free-market economy

and the apparent weakness of the institutions that would otherwise be responsible for the

protection of the public realm and which would through the democratic representation of its

population influence the ways in which the public funds are channeled and set priorities for the long

term urban development of the city. Chisinau of today has been left to the unpredictable nature of

market based development. During the post Soviet period the neoliberal economic and political

model has been imported as an economic means of strengthening democratic processes that were

expected to blossom. As in many other countries of the former Soviet States the reality of the

market forces has developed the opposite effect and that most of the population expected to see

from the democratic processes. In Chisinau as in most of the former post socialist urban centers in

Europe the evidence on the urban transformations reflects a huge disparity between social classes

and their insignificant influence on the development of the public domain. At the larger

metropolitan scale especialy, the democratic processes within the urban planning have been

weakened by the privatizations of the public space, selling of important public structures,

demolition as well as the abandonment of for the city vital structures. The institutional framework

of the cities has been weakened and subjected to the powerful financial and therefore political

interests that the voice of the general population is hardly heard in the decision making processes

in the city. The weakening and the lesser relevance of the institutions has in fact introduced a new

power imbalance and a new form of control of urban space that has abandoned the instituions but

has kept the core of modernist institutionalized control of urban population as well as the top down

planning processes. On the other hand the same processes have opened a few possibility for the

window of opportunitiy for individuals and small actors to transform their urban surroundings for

the time being, through illegal housing, house additions, occupying a former common spaces in the

building, ignore zoning laws and opening small businesses in their own homes, occupation of

sections of streetscape to accommodate for the business, selling on the streets (from card board

box size stalls to established stores, boutiques or workshops). This type of transformations at the

micro scale reflect efforts by the individuals to find a way to make a living, survive or improve on

basic living conditions after the industries have collapsed. The fascinating fact is that on the facade

the institutional framework of urban regulations and laws is still in place and is rather stringent.

However, it is not adjusted to fit the reality of the situation and the needs of the society,

transformations in economic processes, population trends, changes in the forms of productions. It is

this incapacity to adopt and change but also to relate to the particular context that has been

historicaly seen as the problem when it comes to the modernist planning system.