This brief examines Leuven’s garden districts as a lever for urban sustainability transition. With it, the City of Leuven wants to focus on the collective reconversion of garden districts with heritage value. This involves reducing greenhouse gas emissions on the one hand, but also accents around climate robustness. The aim was to develop a transition vision and strategy for pilot neighbourhood Ter Elst, which provides tools for the other garden neighbourhoods. To this end, an integral design team was put together to work from an energy, policy, design and participative angle.
Transition Stories worked out a participation strategy for Ter Elst in four steps. An exploratory workshop with the city and clients about their wishes and expectations, but also to brush up on terrain knowledge about Ter Elst. The participation strategy was then enriched by loading it with insights from transition thinking and participation management. A survey was conducted among Ter Elst residents about their needs, wishes, expectations and to what extent they want to be involved in the process.
Based on the survey results and intervision within the project team, the strategy was refined to provide a substantive focus and deliver a tailor-made participation strategy. This project was brought to fruition in cooperation with OMGEVING, Sweco, RE-ST and SuMa Consulting.