The Dordrechtse Staart green and healthy
The De Staart area in Dordrecht is beautifully located between two rivers and De Biesbosch. At the same time, it is home to industrial companies. The area also faces major challenges regarding the living environment, public health and social cohesion. Green offers integral solutions to these social challenges. The question is: how to get parties on board and pay for green space?
The challenge
Together with residents and other stakeholders, Dordrecht municipality wants to transform the neighbourhood into a ‘Green Healthy Staart’. In the so-called Green Circle, they work together to accelerate projects to make the neighbourhood greener and healthier.
Municipal budgets are often too small to tackle greening seriously. Moreover, greening affects many departments – climate adaptation, public space, health. Who exactly is responsible? Insight into the social costs and benefits of green space can be an important accelerator in these kinds of projects.
The approach
Rebel has clearly mapped out the benefits of greening, and to whom those benefits accrue. We calculated the value of the positive effects over 30 years. For instance, property values increase, mental health improves, social cohesion increases and there is less loss of labour through illness. Higher labour productivity in particular is a valuable insight, as it benefits employers fairly directly.
By linking greening to projects that are planned anyway, such as major maintenance, The Circle has a greater chance of making its dream of a green and healthy living and working area, a reality.
An example is Haringvlietstraat on De Staart, where sewer replacement, tackling contaminated soil and renewing the pavement are all in the pipeline.
The chances of success also grow when stakeholders are involved at an early stage. Choices at this stage can have a major impact on management over the long term, and making demands on or from management makes it more likely that the expected long-term benefits will hold up.
Impact
Rebel offers parties concrete tools to finance green, where the benefits are clear and transparent to all.
