Local living community -Kangas area
About this good practice
Kangas area development started when City of Jyväskylä bought an old papermill area located only 1 km away from the centrum in 2010. The execution phase 17.2-7.4 2011 city of Jyvaskyla has been involved to relevant stakeholders, authorities and citizens before urban planning started. Total participants were 600, 31 well-formed vision, over 20 workshops and collected ideas by interviewing people in city centre. In June the city council accepted Kangas area development principles: Green, Feet, Sustainable, Heart.
Green means that Kangas is a green and attractive area with proximity to nature. Protected river Tourujoki natural habitat is right next to Kangas area, and parks and greenery provides well being to inhabitants. Feet means that Kangas is accessible also without owning a car. Shared and safe bicycle parking is offered in shared courtyards and parking houses. A new cycling highway has been planned and partly built through Kangas area to the city centre and it is part of the city's entire cycling network and enables safe pedestrian traffic as well as fast commuting by bicycle on its own lanes. Sustainability means implementing resource-wise solutions, shared arrangements, and community spirit, which are promoted at Kangas both in the physical environment and on the digital platform Kangasverkko. Heart means that Kangas is a communal residential area where people can live, study and work in different phases of life and an open meeting area and event centre.
Resources needed
Planning was based on Jyvaskyla's major urban development project. Kangas service company runs smart waste management, shared courtyards, areal portal and percentage culture. The main funding comes from Business FIN(Smart City), European Regional Development Fund, Life IP and Circwaste project.
Evidence of success
In the year 2015 residential building projects started, in 2016 Operation of Luova Kampus and in 2017 first residents arrived to Kangas and the first workplace project has been started. Leading principles for area planning was Wise Kangas – shared solutions, smart and resource efficient use. The area itself has got a national award of “neighbourhood of the year 2024” even though area is not ready. The parking solution also aims to influence the cost of parking related to housing prices.
Potential for learning or transfer
Transfer is mainly related to how involving and engaging local living people to create their living area in sustainable way. At the early phase citizens has been invited to join progress itself. Over 20 workshops were held with individuals and different living group of people interviewed to get input and create an open internet forum to collect all ideas. Kangas is thus a special example of how urban development and construction can be implemented at the interface of public and private sectors co-operating together, as well as across organizational and unit boundaries. There have a rewarding parking pricing to involve area people to use common parking houses. Only those who use the parking house pay for parking on Kangas, and the cost of parking is lower compared to normal implementation. Living lab thoughts of wise Kangas was as first step of development phase and it can be use in future as planning face of city other development platforms to built together with SH smart city concept.
Further information
Images
Website
Good practice owner
You can contact the good practice owner below for more detailed information.