Palencia Urban Project 2007-2013

a) Increase in the business dynamic, with a rise, at the end of the Project, of 20% in the location of business companies and services all over the Urban zone. This will be accentuated around the new accessible communication axis, with a rise of 30% of the companies, becoming, like that, in the new referential area of the zone for the organization of the economic activity as well as for the enrichment of the urban life. The ones related to the quality of life and personal services of proximity will have special interest. They will afford the flowering of activities, presently carried out inside the black economy..

 

b) The residents’ identification with their zone will be widely intensified, with rises in the positive valuation of more than 30% and the external image, with increases of more than 15%. As a consequence, this will have the improvement of the residential attractiveness and the location of economic activities in the zone.

c) Creation of a total of 150 new employments, more of 50% of them for women. The execution of several works of equipment construction and green areas which will bring the creation of 300 employments in a period of contracts of 15 months.

d) 50 annual jobs in a situation or risk of social exclusion inside the labor market will be intervened regardless of the stability of the job, unless 30 of them will be for women..

e) The rate of activity in the zone will grow, particularly between women; increasing the female activity in more than 5 points in two years after the end of the project. The evolution of the indicators of unemployment will be near the tendencies of the whole town.

a) Especialización funcional de la zona como consecuencia del aumento de la dotación de equipamientos sociales y culturales y de espacios de ocio y recreo, que producirá un incremento de un 20% de los desplazamientos hacia la zona URBAN del resto de la ciudad.

b) Aumento del conocimiento de la población de las actuaciones y resultados del Proyecto URBAN PALENCIA, de forma que, a su finalización, el 80% de la población mayor de 16 años conozca el Proyecto más allá de su nombre, titularidad y financiación, e incremento de la participación ciudadana, en proporción creciente del 15% anual, en el número consultas y demandas planteadas, y en la recepción de propuestas, en torno al 5% de las consultas planteadas.

c) Más de 4.000 personas, de todas las edades, participarán en proyectos de animación comunitaria y de tiempo libre y ocio, desarrollados en los centros sociales.

d) Lograr una regeneración urbana ecológica que suponga un proceso de inversión del declive económico, físico y social.

a) Reduction in 20% of the present differences of social structure respect to the whole of the town. Measures in terms of job classification and level of studies. This will be in two years at the end of the project. This tendency is expected to start in four years from the beginning.

 

b) More than 60% of the unemployed groups of the zone, in situation or risk of social exclusion will improve their qualification with basic and professional training and they will have the opportunity of rehabilitating in the labor market. Unless 25% of the total trainees will incorporate to the labor market in a period of six months since the completion of the training.

 

c) The 50% of minors with failure at school will pass satisfactorily their studies.1,500 people, belonging to groups with special difficulties such as ethnic minorities, women, disabled, youth, elderly, will participate in several preventive programs of health, pregnancy, disability and drug dependence. And 250 people a year will do it in programs of social intervention targeted to minors, multi-problematic families and elderly. They are orientated to the improvement of the quality of life and their social rehabilitation.

The general objective of Palencia Urban Project: To contribute to the urban, economic and social balance of the “El Cristo” and “Ave María” districts which are separated by the physical barrier of the railway:

• Producing dynamics of urban regeneration, of economic promotion and of the human, sustainable and lasting resources through the trigging of capacities of endogenous development. This demands an allocation of local equipment comparable to the whole of the town.
• Locating in the zone new general equipment, of local and regional field. As well as incorporating new urban functions which are able to generate the effect of urban agglomeration and to attract to the zone visitors, residents and new and quality economic activities.
• Incorporating to the dynamic of urban regeneration of the zone all the sectors and groups of population, specially the groups with more difficulties of integration in the general social dynamics and foreseeing movements of expulsion of population derived from the accumulation of interventions of the Project itself.

 

All in all, it is about transforming the present model of asymmetric relation between the URBAN zone and the rest of the town, so in what is referred to the urban balance of allocation as the daily flows of displacement between one and another zone. The rapprochement between the commercial axis of the town centre, the Main Street and the new central area of the URBAN zone, for the enrichment of its urban life and its economic capacity. It makes up a good graphic metaphor of the objectives of the urban, economic and social balance which Palencia Urban Project wants and here we propose.

 

For the elaboration of the project it has been activated a process of local cooperation which has involved the participation of the local agents in the analysis and diagnostic of the action zone, in the valuation of its abilities and deficiencies, in the identification of the challenges which the Urban zone should face, in the definition of the intervention strategy and the elaboration, discussion and preeminence of projects and measures of action.

 

This level of local cooperation, already developed in the elaboration of a strategic town plan, has kept in the co-financed programs under the protection of other community activities in last years. This involves a strong tradition of participation and local cooperation, which will be kept in the management of this project, about the system of planning. It will be created a council of participation with steady nature. In this council, groups of active study about the critic aspects of the project and its strategies of intervention will be started, as well as an evaluation commission in which we foresee the participation above all of the universities involved in the project. The decisions of the planning will be passed by the foreseen organs of participation.

 

ACCOUNT OF ENTITIES INVOLVED IN THE PROCESS OF LOCAL COOPERATION FOR THE DEFINITION OF THE PROJECT (In the Appendix II of this report, the signed documents by the mentioned entities are enclosed. It commits to their participation and active cooperation with the project):

• CÁMARA OFICIAL DE COMERCIO E INDUSTRIA DE PALENCIA
• OFFICIAL CHAMBER OF COMMERCE AND INDURSTRY OF PALENCIA
• AVE MARÍA NEIGHBORHOOD ASSOCIATION
• AVE MARIA SPORTS CLUB
• MURIEL CULTURAL ASSOCIATION
• FEMALE NON-GIPSIES AND GIPSIES ROMI ASSOCIATION
• POPULAR UNIVERSITY OF PALENCIA
• KING ALFONSO VIII ASSOCIATION
• WORKERS GENERAL UNION OF PALENCIA
• DISABLED PEOPLE FEDERATION OF PALENCIA
• COMMUNIST LABOR UNION OF PALENCIA
• C.P.O.E – Palencia Confederation of Business Associations
• FEDERAIN ACTION OF PALENCIA
• VALLADOLID UNIVERSITY (AGRICULTURIST ENGINEERING)
• “PORQUE SI”- BECAUSE YES ASSOCIATION
• GIPSY SECRETARIAL WORK FOUNDATION
• C.O. ARCHITECT FROM LEÓN, DELEGATION OF PALENCIA
• EL CRISTO NEIGHBORHOOD ASSOCIATION
• OFFICIAL SCHOOL OF AGRICULTURAL ENGINEERING “CASTILLA DUERO” (COITA)
• REGIONAL CENTER U.N.E.D.(National University of Distance Learning)
• LECTURE OF GENDER STUDIES

The innovative dimension of the Palencia Urban Project, which intervenes in a zone of the town separated of the central area by the barrier of the railway, is centered on focusing the attention and intervention proposed in the economic, social, urban and allocation situation of the zone itself, displacing it from the railway barrier which presently focuses the interest of the administrative organs and district associations. This means to face the diagnosis of the zone and recognize that the economic, social and urban imbalance of the zone demands something independent and different from the solution to the urban barrier. What is more, just one integral intervention like the proposed will be able to foresee and counteract bad effects which could derive from the elimination of the railway limit of the zone: speculation and expulsion of the population groups in situation of social exclusion to new farther areas of urban segregation.

 

The Palencia Urban Project and the system of assessment of the environment planned, means the monitoring of the zone and the control of the effects that any measure or circumstance that affects it can have over the zone and its districts. The integral nature itself of the intervention and the model of participated management form themselves the innovative elements, but above all, it is the proposal of generating a new area of urban and economic dynamism around the zone that we propose.

 

We propose a group of measures that have an innovative nature, as we detail below, but the basic effect of the Project will be achieved with the involvement of the residents in its objectives. It will be the accumulation of actions and the fact of feeling permanently assisted and watched by the agents of the Project and the whole of the town.

 

Like this, and depending on the Topic Areas proposed by the URBAN initiative, the following measures, which contain an innovative component, can be pointed out:

• Creation of a “Multipurpose Training Centre” inside the Urban zone, which comprises:
• Virtual Information Centre to the Citizens through the use of the NITCs (Cyber-Room)
• School of Nature
• A point of information about the domestic use of the renewable energies and the save of energy. Campaigns of public awareness.
• Recovery, rehabilitation and adaptation of the Otero Hill and its environment.
• Process of urban sustainable management for all the environmental, social and economic problems with the aim of laying the foundations of the necessary integration which takes into account the “Green Book about the Urban Environment (EEC, 1990)”
• Creation of cycle lanes and parking space for bikes which boosts the use of the bicycle between the Cristo, Ave Maria districts and the rest of the town.
• Creation of a Sports Hall and Outdoor Sports Tracks on municipal areas inside the URBAN zone.;

 

In the actions in favor of the employment, along the Project we can see plans that leave the traditional systems of doing things to introduce sometimes, experimental elements. So, it is proposed the use of a financial support framework which replaces the weight of the subsidy in the programs of promotion of self-employment jobs which makes easy the beginning of the business activities minimizing the costs of setting-up and guarantees the effective investment and the maintenance of the new companies in the market.

 

The promotion of initiatives linked to new sites of employment, which are innovative themselves and even more if we have into account the characteristics of the action zone and the set in motion of instruments financing demand activation of the initiatives, very little proved in our country. In the search of employment we propose the personalized itineraries of labor rehabilitation, which are as important in the Communal Initiatives co-financed by the European Social Fund and the training in companies as a previous step to get a steady job.

 

We also propose a different way of managing the basic services, setting up the opening of community and educative structural centers in unusual scheduling, the execution of projects of speeding up between several public and private organizations, the promotion of associations which implies the improvement of services and infrastructures and a bigger social dynamism through the different institutions and associations of the neighborhoods in the Project.

 

There are also innovative elements at methodological level, inside the proposed projects, such as the measures of complement and personalized support to minors in difficulties of absenteeism and failure at school.

 

The objectives and actions of the present project have as a guiding principle the equality of treatment and equal opportunity between men and women, it incorporates the perspective of gender in the whole of the policies and actions of the PALENCIA URBAN Project.

 

Anyway, the main innovative nature is found in the projects which are related to the promotion of different measures of subsidized employment targeted to underprivileged groups, measures that concern the public initiative through the changes in the recruitment of public services, as well as to the private initiative, in the promotion of employment initiatives adapted to the special characteristics of these groups, in public services as well as in new sites of employment.

 

The education and awareness in environmental topics, adding the new technologies of the information society.

 

Improvement in the access and massive incorporation to the information technologies and rise of the level awareness to the possible challenges and benefits of the Information Society in the zone where the Palencia Urban Project is developed.

 

Finally, the improvement in the urban management, it also has got an innovative nature, promoting the citizen participation, enriching the life between residents in the neighborhoods and adding new information technologies, and demanding for its well working, important modifications in the more common patterns of management and organization.

 

The communication and diffusion actions make up the support of the rest of the Project and the involvement and participation guarantee of the neighbors and organizations of the zone and the whole of the town. This participation, clearly innovative, also highlights assessment, where it is incorporated to the citizens and the economic and social agents, in the process of diagnosis and assessment, achieving like this an analysis shared between the actors, public and private, free of prejudices and commonplaces.

 

Several questions could be made. They could also serve as control parameters to verify if the Palencia Urban Project is innovative: Are there any similar projects in the zone? Are new technologies introduced in the project? Are new ways of management introduced? Are new approaches given to the persistent problems? Is existing knowledge of another zone or sector incorporated? Are notable changes in the way of facing the problems introduced? Is the Project treated in a multi sector way? Will the Project mean the important improvements in: human resources, technology, marketing way, the organization? After a reading in detail of the PALENCIA URBAN Project we can answer in the affirmative to all the questions. This gives us an idea of the innovative nature of the project.

The Palencia Urban Project has as one of its main objectives to promote equal opportunity between men and women, which will operate in a transversal way in the whole of measures and plans of the Project with the principles established in the project of Treaty through which a Constitution for Europe is established and the regulations about equal opportunities shown in the General Regulation of the Structural Funds and the regulation which rules the European Social Fund.

The equality between men and women makes up a basic value in the Community that, according to the article 2 of the Treaty, will have the function of promoting the equality actively. As well, the article 3 of the Treaty has the principle of integration of the gender perspective asserting that, in all activities, the Community will fix the objective of eliminating the inequalities between men and women and promoting its equality. On the other hand, the article 13 establishes that the adoption of pro-active measures to fight against the discrimination because of reasons of sex, racial or ethnic origin, religion or convictions, disability, age or sexual orientation. Finally, the articles 137 and 141 refer to the equal opportunities and treatment at work and establish that the members States will have to guarantee the application of the equality principle of repayment between female and male workers in the same job or a job with the same value.

The European Employment Strategy (EES) reflects this approach through the combination of specific objectives for the women (for example, a rate of employm ent of 60% or the reduction of the imbalances between men and women in their jobs, the unemployment and the remuneration) with the necessity of integrating a gender perspective in all the actions, inside the framework of the EES and its integration in the new community program of Lisbon, the integrated Directives for the growth and employment (2005 -2008), as well as the Commission Communication about the strategic Community Directives highlights equal opportunities, the fight against discrimination and the promotion of the integration of the gender perspective are essential in order to progress to the consecution of full employment and the reduction of unemployment and inactivity.

There is a narrow relation between the success of the PALENCIA URBAN Project and the fulfillment of the objective of equal opportunities, since the woman gets a protagonist role in relation to the economic and social promotion of the action zone, as what is referred to labor and social integration as its role of consumer. In this direction, and following the indications of the community policy, it is acted in the five environments in which the reduction of costs and the promotion of equality are especially important./p>

This approach doesn’t only comprises specific measures in favor of women but it tries to mitigate the structural inequalities, linked to the organization of the professional and familiar life, which prevents a great number of women from taking part in the professional life, making their insertion in the labor market possible. This approach also permits that important sites of employment are shown, which can and must be source of new employment and wealthy, especially in the environment of personal services of proximity, in which the woman gets a protagonist role.

 

As a general objective, it is expected to achieve that more than 60% of the annual jobs to intervene, and the new steady employment which will be generated because of the implementation of the PALENCIA URBAN Project, are employed by women.

 

The present project has a direct relation with the II Municipal Plan of Equal Opportunity between Women and Men from Palencia approved by the town council of Palencia in the year 2005. Taking into account the above shown, the Project has as an objective to promote equal opportunity between women and men, representing a positive intervention as regards the equality, through transversal and specific actions, set aside for eliminating the obstacles to the full participation of women and men in the labor market and the social and economic life, between what we can mention:

 

• Actions related to the general and professional training and the labor access of women who are rehabilitated to the labor market or the ones who do it inside the black economy, helping them to get or consolidate their job.
• Financial and technical assistance to the women who produce and develop new companies or initiatives of social economy.
• Actions which promote the emergence of new employments in social environments and especially in the personal services of proximity, which mainly women take benefit from, in the offer as well as in the demand.
• Actions professional and familiar life conciliation, which afford women to access to the labor market.
• Actions set aside to improve the social infrastructures in the action zone.
• Actions of security and mobility improvement inside the affected zone. Specific training for the improvement of women qualification in new technologies.
• Actions of promotion equal worker women opportunities inside the business and the participation in the take of decisions.

 

Another element which has been taken into account for the design of the PALENCIA URBAN Project, has been the accessibility of every action which are carried out in its framework, of the disabled people, following the established guidelines by the 1st Plan of Accessibility 2008 – 2012 developed by the Department of Work and Social Matters through IMSERSO(Migration and Social Services Institute) , being this the principal instrument of action in the Law of Equal Opportunity, No Discrimination and Universal Accessibility of Disabled people.

 

The PALENCIA URBAN PROJECT will be developed, referring to the fulfillment of accessibility criteria, to the framework of the Municipal Plan of Accessibility itself, elaborated and developed in cooperation with the ONCE (National Organization of Spanish Blinds) foundation and IMSERSO (Migration and Social Services Institute), with which there is a line of usual collaboration for the development of the plan as well as the execution and financing of accessibility and adaptation works of the public transport.

 

Consequently, this project will respect the regulative criteria themselves which report the quoted Municipal Plan of Accessibility, the criteria are the following:

 

• SPANISH CONSTITUTION.
• CASTILLA Y LEON STATUE OF AUTONOMY.
• 1st NATIONAL PLAN OF ACCESSIBIITY 2004 – 2012.
• NATIONAL LAW OF PERSONAL AUTONOMY 2007.
• Decree Regional Strategy of Accessibility of Castilla y León 2004 – 2008.
• Decree 100/2000, of May 4th, where it is approved the Regulation of the Advisory Commission for the Accessibility and Elimination of Barriers in Castilla y León.
• Decree 217/2001, of August 30th, where it is approved the Regulation of Accessibility and Elimination of Barriers.
• Law 3/1998, of June 24th of Accessibility and Elimination of Barriers.
• The United Nations approved on December 20th, 1993, the “Uniform Rules about Equal Opportunities for the Disabled People”.

 

In Europe, the most interesting about accessibility it is found in the Europe plans (2002) and in the text of the “Letter of the Basic Rights of the European Union”.

The strategies of regional development, which the Autonomous Government of Castilla y León has set in motion during the previous programming period 2000 – 2006 and which will continue in the present period 2007 – 2013, are the Operative Integrated Program and the Plan of Integral Development of Castilla y León. The Palencia Urban Project observes both documents in the chapters related to the strategies of Urban Local Development, Environment, Natural Environment and Water Resources. Rehabilitation and occupational rehabilitation of the unemployed. Reinforce of the stability in the employment and adaptability. Integration in the labor market of people with special difficulties. Women participation in the labor market.

 

In the programming period 2000 – 2006 of the structural funds, the town hall of Palencia has managed two projects in the framework of the Community Initiative EQUAL, the LOCAL PROJECT ACTIVA 2002 – 2004 and the LOCAL LABOR PROJECT 2005 – 2007, financed by the ESF.

 

EQUAL LOCAL ACTIVA PROJECT 2002 – 2004: This project objective was to reduce the imbalances of genders and supports the basic social necessities of the most underprivileged target population, coordinating the actions with the existing services in the town.

 

LOCAL LABOR PROJECT 2005 – 2007: The project has had as objectives to facilitate the access and the reinstatement to the labor market of Palencia people with difficulties of rehabilitation through integral mechanisms of training adapted to the necessities of business environment and the peculiarities of the target groups.

 

With reference to the most emblematic projects financed by ERDF it stands out the II Plan of Urban banks and the improvement of the accessibility of the Provincial Palace (Palacio Provincial) at the entry on Berruguete Street. The expansion of the chamber of mixed levels of EDAR of Palencia and the Urban Waste Treatment Centre of Palencia partly financed with the Cohesion Fund.

 

Other projects financed with ERDF and related to the use of renewable energies are the execution of three installations of thermal solar energy for the swimming pools and the sports hall Marta Dominguez and the installation of several modules led for the urban lighting with subsidy of IDAE.

 

Presently, the town hall of Palencia collaborates with the Castilla y Leon Autonomous Government in the set in motion of the following projects of urban environment:

 

• Agreement between the Environment Ministry and the town hall of Palencia for the execution of projects of environmental education: PROGRAM (1): SUSTAINABLE GARDENS AND PARKS. GREEN ROUTES. PROGRAM (2): RENEWABLE ENERGIES PROMOTION.
• Agreement between the Environment Ministry and the town hall of Palencia for the development of management linked to the recreational zone “Monte Viejo” (Old Mount).

 

 

On the other hand, as an important sign, for the fulfillment of the environmental rules of the EU and Castilla y León has the Local Agenda 21 of Palencia has set in motion.

 

These programs have permitted this town hall to acquire abilities and a significant experience in the formal management of projects co-financed by community initiatives as well as in the field of labor rehabilitation, where we have past from the personalized itineraries to the development of strategies with group support to the labor rehabilitation, as a conceptual jump in the model of intervention, going on beyond the strict labor environment, to guarantee the suitable familiar and social rehabilitation as a guarantee for the maintenance and improvement of employment.

 

On the other hand, we have achieved to involve employers themselves in these processes of labor rehabilitation, associating the process of training to the concrete necessities of these and the process of personal selection itself. Finally, it is worth mentioning that all of them have had a strong participative component which facilitates and makes usual the development of these processes in the design, management and assessment of the projects, as it has happened with this.

 

Most of the projects started by the town hall of Palencia inside the last Community Framework of Support as well as inside the application of the different National and Regional policies are naturally coherent with the intervention strategies designed for this PALENCIA URBAN Project.

Two of the key elements of the management of the URBAN PALENCIA Project are related to the participation of different actors and with the quality of the urban environment of the Urban zone. This participation will be elaborated through the proposals include in the Local Agenda 21 where they established the measures that in the municipal environment related to the environment have to adapt and where management organs of wide representation are promoted. As well the Informative Commission of Environment itself and the Municipal Council of Environment will serve as control organs of the actions included in the PALENCIA URBAN Project.

 

The environmental aspects will be taken into account since the moment of the projects writing, independently of the Topic Area in which they are located, and the legal necessity of formal assessment of the environmental impact, to the assessment of them, where control indicators of the actions directly related to the environment are included. These indicators are introduced in all the phases of the project, doing special reference to the initial moment of the definitive design of each action, where it is guaranteed the observance of the guiding principles of environment protection and in accordance with community policy and the national and regional strategies. The orientations for the elaboration of the indicators of monitoring and evaluation proposed for the Structural Funds (Directive 2001/42/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council, of June 27th, 2001, relative to the assessment of the effects of some plans and programs in the environment).

 

In this direction, the necessity of Environment Impact Studies will obviously checked in those projects related to transport and installation of industries and constructions which precise it, according to the sector legislation of application to the material. We will take into account all the measures which in tenders of projects and criteria of selection of subsidized actions in charge of the PALENCIA URBAN Project, contribute to minimize or compensate the damages caused in the environment.

 

The concrete actions of environment interest collected in the Topic Areas of PALENCIA URBAN Project are the following