The Deputy Minister for Territorial Planning and Urban Agenda of the Basque Government, Miguel de los Toyos, and the Councillor for Housing and President of Bilbao Municipal Housing, Jon Bilbao, visited on Tuesday 29 June the Opengela project for urban regeneration and rehabilitation of buildings that is being carried out in the Otxarkoaga neighbourhood. The meeting was held at the Otxar Opengela, as well as in the buildings that are part of the initiative.

The Bilbao neighbourhood is one of the pilot projects, together with Eibar, where a neighbourhood office has been set up to accompany the neighbourhood throughout the process of refurbishing their buildings. Its managers support homeowners’ associations in the contracting of works, in the management of public aid, in access to financing, in the improvement of energy efficiency or accessibility. This model of neighbourhood offices has begun to be replicated in other Basque municipalities.

The Otxar Opengela is the place for meetings with the residents of three of the five blocks to coordinate the necessary actions to proceed with the refurbishment work. Specifically, these are the blocks at 18-24 Txotena Street, 1 Larrakoetxe Street and 12-16 Txotena Street. In the first two, the works are currently underway, while the one corresponding to Txotena 12-16 is in the tendering phase.

In order to offer assistance and advice to residents in these buildings, the Otxar Opengela staff have already been in contact with the neighbourhood and have made progress on the details for carrying out the work in four of the five blocks involved.

Specifically, so far this year, the local office has hosted seven neighbourhood meetings to advise on the decisions to be taken. The Otxar Opengela advisors also carry out individualised procedures with each owner for the execution of interior finishes, as well as resolving doubts and complaints. They also attend the telephone enquiries about the progress of the refurbishment work. Their functions also include guidance on financing and the processing of individualised public aid.

The office also has a space for research on urban regeneration in which public and private agents are getting involved. Several courses and workshops on urban regeneration have already been held in these multi-purpose rooms, as well as employability launchers. Specifically, two courses and three workshops have been given, as well as the coordination meetings of the neighbourhood offices of the Basque Country, which have chosen the Otxar Opengela to hold these sessions.

The Deputy Minister of Territorial Planning and Urban Agenda of th e Basque Government, Miguel de los Toyos, has highlighted the role of Opengela in the whole regeneration process. «It is a one-stop-shop that provides general support and guidance to residents, and helps them with both technical and administrative aspects». He also wanted to highlight the ambition of the Otxarkoaga project «because it is not limited to the renovation of public spaces and housing, but also proposes a comprehensive revitalisation of the neighbourhood, also taking into account economic aspects, employment and social cohesion».

Numerous actions

There are numerous actions in the district related to urban regeneration and energy efficiency, with the involvement of the associative fabric. Within the framework of an initiative called Orain Otxar, the aim is to turn Otxarkoaga into a socially sustainable eco-neighbourhood. This is the first experience of its kind in the city, the result of institutional collaboration and the shared commitment to urban regeneration of the Department of Territorial Planning, Housing and Transport of the Basque Government and Bilbao Municipal Housing.

According to the Councillor for Housing of Bilbao City Council and President of Municipal Housing, Jon Bilbao, «of the five blocks of buildings that are part of the project’s rehabilitation plan, two of them are being developed at full capacity, the remodelling of the F shopping centre building has also been completed to host socio-cultural activities in the near future and we are working on the design of the shared energy self-consumption association that will allow residents to use the surplus energy from the installation of solar panels».

The most relevant actions of the project are the refurbishment of five buildings under energy efficiency and universal accessibility criteria. In total, the intervention that is being proposed to the rest of the owners affects 240 homes spread over 16 house numbers and three streets in the neighbourhood (Irumineta, Txotena and Larrakoetxe). This work will be added to the one that has already been carried out until 2017 with improvement works in four buildings with a total of 228 homes in Bilbao.

This is complemented by another European project called PV Adapt, which aims to apply a new building-integrated photovoltaic solar energy system. It consists of the design and testing of new generation photovoltaic solar panels that will be installed in the Otxar Opengela office, in the F Shopping Centre and in one of the buildings to be refurbished. In addition to producing electricity, the panels are insulating and act as a finish for façades and roofs.

Miguel de los Toyos took office as Deputy Minister of Territorial Planning and Urban Agenda of the Basque Government last March, after leaving the post of Mayor of Eibar, which he had held since 2008. Therefore, his knowledge of the Opengela project is complete, both from a municipal point of view and a wider point of view coming from the responsibilities of his current post.

In this interview, he gives his point of view on the progress of the project, coordinated by his department of the Basque Government, which implements neighbourhood offices to undertake urban regeneration processes and is financed by the Horizon 2020 programme of the European Commission. Otxarkoaga (Bilbao) and Txonta (Eibar) are the pilot schemes, and the process to replicate the model in other places has already begun.

You are familiar with the Opengela project. It requires a high level of coordination between institutions, and also with the neighbourhood. Two years after it started, how do you rate the progress of the project? 

It is a project that has three pillars, and none can be dispensed with: the Basque Government, as the promoter; city councils, which require a serious and convinced commitment; and the neighbourhood communities in which you want to act. This means that the previous work, of informing and of showing commitment, is long and progressive. Therefore, the tangible – the building renovation, comes in the final phase of the project, which does not mean that it has not been worked on previously. You have to invest a lot of time so that in the end, the project progresses and has strength in its foundations. At this time, those foundations are already in place and now we will begin to see how the building grows.

Europe is going through a period of strong commitment to the ‘Renovation Wave’, within the European Green Deal, as one of the main driving forces to boost the economy after the pandemic. How does the Opengela project fit into this context?

Opengela, from the outset, is aligned with all public policies at international, European, national and Basque Country levels. In 2015, the United Nations established the 17 SDGs, where SDG 11 is the one for sustainable cities. Opengela is a practical example of the materialisation of this SDG. There is now talk of three transitions and all of them converge on Opengela. Green transition: Opengela aims for energy efficiency and decarbonisation by 2050. Digital transition: Energy communities are created, the digitalisation of consumption, electric mobility. Social and demographic transition: It is an urban regeneration project that considers not only the environment (buildings, streets, squares) but also people. It works on training, employment, protection of vulnerable people… The virtue of Opengela is that it is aligned with the Green Deal from its origin, before the pact itself existed. 

There are numerous urban regeneration projects in Spain and Europe, what distinguishes Opengela?

This project has a holistic, transversal vision. The urban environment has been identified not only by the government but also by the city councils. And the social part is fundamental because it acts in vulnerable neighbourhoods.

The success of this European project will depend on the possibility of scaling up the model beyond Bilbao and Eibar. There are already other Basque municipalities that are taking the first steps to apply the same model. How is this process progressing?

The two municipalities that joined the project, Bilbao and Eibar, have already been joined by another two: Lasarte and Durango. And soon, Pasaia will also be part of it. A lot of internal work has been done, and we are now moving forward to achieve visible results in urban regeneration. We are at an embryonic stage. At the same time, we are incorporating four other Biscayan town councils into Opengela: Portugalete, Valle de Trápaga, Abanto-Zierbena and Santurtzi. In their reflections on how to act in their areas, they have identified urban regeneration as a strategic project. The same is happening in Alava, in the Ayala Valley. This shows the interest in integral urban regeneration. We will soon receive additional funds from Europe and, in order to promote urban regeneration projects, we have received the strategic interest of more than 70 municipalities and more than 110 initiatives. From a pilot experience in two municipalities that is still in the development phase, Opengela has attracted the interest of other municipalities that have a similar diagnosis. This is a symptom that we were right to present this European project. We took a step forward, and others are confirming that it was the right step to take.

What do you consider to be the main difficulty in undertaking the project?

I have seen most of this project from the City Council, as Mayor. The main complexity of Opengela is to unite people’s wishes and make all the communities and people who participate in the project see how it will improve their quality of life. First, the Basque Government explains the project to the town councils and then it is the town councils who do the same work with the neighbourhood. It is a slow, progressive process. If it can be difficult for a community of 16 homes to decide to install a lift, imagine a community of 200 homes in a vulnerable environment. We have to get them to agree. The exercise of teaching and visualising the opportunity may be complex, but it is undoubtedly indispensable.

It is essential that these urban regeneration processes are carried out hand in hand with the neighbourhood. You have listened to the concerns of residents on the street, how do you think the project has been received?

There are often differences. There are communities that have a concern and have detected their own needs: the lift, fixing the façade … In that case, it is easier to approach, and you become a collaborator. Other communities have not detected this need and view it with a certain scepticism. This initial reluctance is more easily overcome as they see the projects in their neighbourhood go ahead, see the buildings being successfully refurbished and the positive impact this has on the daily lives of those living nearby.

Opengela’s European projection is undeniable. Why should other parts of the European Union pay attention to the process being developed in the Basque Country with regard to urban regeneration?

We all have to learn from each other. We have looked elsewhere. But I think we have initiatives to teach here. It probably will not work for everyone because each country and municipality has its own idiosyncrasies. But there may be variables that can be useful for them. The greatest virtues of Opengela are, on the one hand, that it is aligned with the cities we want to achieve by 2050 and with the path we want to take to reach that year. And, on the other hand, the transversal nature of the project. Intellectually, it is well armed. We do not say so ourselves, this comes from the Ministry of the Urban Agenda and the national and international forums we attend. Now we are taking it to vulnerable neighbourhoods and transforming it into something tangible. I hope it will be a reference for other urban environments and inspire other initiatives.

The essence of the Opengela project is urban regeneration and, specifically, the refurbishment of buildings. Both Txonta, in Eibar, and Otxarkoaga, in Bilbao, are making progress in the work of the communities that have joined the programme. The first building works are already underway, even though the pandemic has hampered the process. 

In Otxarkoaga, where the project covers 16 apartment buildings with 240 homes, work is already progressing in 5 apartment buildings and 108 homes: Txotena 18, 20, 22 and 24, as well as Larrakoetxe 1.

In Txotena Street, the scaffolding indicates that the works are underway. But, in addition, all kinds of specialised tasks continue to be defined: thermal installations and renewable energies, thermal enclosures…

Contact between the office and the residents is constant, with all kinds of queries related to the works or the replacement of windows.

In Larrakoetxe 1, the execution phase of the project has been completed. There, the neighbourhood office has participated in the review of the construction specifications, the evaluation of the bids and the selection of the construction company to carry out the work.

In Txonta, the office re-established relations with the neighbourhood in June last year, always in compliance with strict security measures due to the pandemic. And the work has continued.

In total, the Opengela project is working on 221 homes in 17 apartment buildings. The buildings with the greatest progress are Txonta 36, 38 and 40, as well as Txonta 2, with a total of 67 homes, which are already nearing the end of the building works. In Txonta 3, work has already begun and is expected to be completed within a year.