The housing studio is intended for non-native and native Dutch residents. It is an interactive work form that offers the participants an opportunity to directly influence the policy of municipalities, housing corporations and project developers.

Forum sees Residents’ Housing Studios as an innovative way of stimulating social participation. A Residents’ Housing Studio is usually organised in neighbourhoods that are about to undergo urban restructuring.

A housing studio is also particularly suitable for bringing together specific target groups (the elderly, the young) and enabling discussion of such questions as housing and care, housing and working, housing and safety and housing and recreation (lifestyles). In this way, a housing studio provides an insight into what the involved parties themselves consider important. It encourages active participation and group formation, and generates refreshing ideas in terms of policy.

A Residents’ Housing Studio consists of a group of ten to twenty primarily ethnic minority residents who follow a set programme over a three to four month period. In a series of up to ten interactive workshops, they discuss their wishes and dreams relating to housing issues and systematically catalogue the problems and opportunities that exist in their city or neighbourhood. They collaborate with experts (architects and designers), in working their ideas into viable proposals, using photographs, diagrams and drawings. The draft plans are presented to local authority officials, housing associations and property developers. They are designed to be included into official neighbourhood development plans.

Thanks to a housing studio the dialogue with local residents is smoother and more effective. The local residents are thus more able to influence the housing policy of their municipality and to express their own wishes and priorities related to housing issues.

The project received subsidies from the Netherlands Ministry of Housing, Social Planning and the Environment: 93.000 euros. The costs for FORUM comprised some 300.000 euros for a period of three years. The future funding of the project is based on profit by local governments and housing associations (total costs for organizing a housing studio: 12.000 euros).

FORUM
Mr R. Sohilait (Project leader), tel. +31 30 2974334

01/01/2002

case

Urban Policy > Social inclusion & integration > Community development

Citizens' participation