Speech of Prime Minister Edi Rama at the National Planning Conference at the local level:
I thank and welcome wholeheartedly the foreign experts that are here today. Following a wisely and qualitatively good process organized by the Ministry of Urban Development, it is a privilege for us to take advantage of their contribution in view of this historical transformation of the approach to the territory.
Secondly, I welcome and thank the mayors here present for their commitment, and especially the mayors of the opposition, because I believe that their presence here and the joint commitment of these mayors in this process has an inalienable importance for the communities you manage.
Thirdly, I sympathize with any expression of impatience of all the mayors in a process that has been delayed for a quarter of century. What we are doing today should have been done 25years ago, and over these 25 years. Had we done this 25 years ago or over these 25 years, we would have now another Albania, we would have now a totally different territory, and we would be speaking now about totally different things.
Territory means economy. We would have now a much more vibrant economy. Territory means health. We would have now a much healthier situation. Territory means education and growth. We would have now a much more sustainable growth. Territory means the dwelling of society. We would have now a much safer dwelling. Territory means the space to create welfare for every individual. We would have now a space with much larger potentials to create welfare for every individual, compared to the space we have because of this delay of over 20 years.
However, it’s never too late because if we conceive this meeting in relation to history, it is a drop in the ocean, and the time to reflect and address adequately the things that have been addressed wrongly over the years is always the right time.
We have made a commitment that is among the most important ones, but also among the most challenging ones, and this is the drafting of a National General Plan. This plan is not just a rumour, because it is about a vision that goes beyond a government mandate, it goes beyond a political process that relates to a certain political class, and it goes even beyond a generation.
On the other hand, it requires the commitment of more complex instruments, and a power of knowledge which we have not. And just because we do not have it, we have invited here all those who come from outside of us, representatives of studios with competences and knowledge, who are an added value to this process and at a time, when we live in a world that is so open and having problems that may be different, but that are very similar at the same time. Because, if we talk for instance about climate change, this is a problem that everybody faces today. Just as with a number of other phenomena of a transformation and urbanization process that, even in more developed countries, appears as a threat to the balances of nature and to the relation of the individual with nature.
However, we have taken this commitment. I have said in one of the hearings organized by the Ministry of Urban Development, that I was not very optimistic as to expect that a team of young people made available to this project, under the leadership of the minister of Urban Development, would succeed in only 2 and a half years in doing what they did thanks also to a special aptitude and a special intellectual modesty to recognize their limitations, and to go beyond the limits of a limited knowledge by inviting others and by enabling a coordination with others, with architects, with renowned town planners and some others less renowned but with special abilities, from different countries around the world, to materialize a vision that is already evident, and which requires additional work to be detailed.
Ultimately, significant progress is always possible if we are able to plan every detail, by creating at the same time the conditions for the interventions of fate to occur under the conditions prescribed by us, in terms of development territory. So that they will not occur, as it has happened in 25 years, with us being part of the history of intensive development. Of course, a lot has changed in terms of the relation of the individual or the family with their own dwelling conditions. Today, a large majority of Albanians own houses, but this change, this growth model has been conditioned by an historical destruction, by a barbarity and massacre, the consequences of which will continue to be suffered for years. Destruction of forests, of riverbeds, of natural protective structures, destruction of the infrastructure that is in front of our eyes, destruction of the fund of farmland, and above all, – I always put it above all, although it may seem less important, – destruction of every part of Albania’s beautiful body.
By damaging the beauty of this country, we actually damage its most precious asset. We have never stopped in all these years and take a breath to think about the landscape, because landscape has been considered an overdue luxury. It has been considered more appropriate to promote intensive development, by depriving nature, beaches, hills, olive groves, and so on, of entire territories. Without thinking to create harmony between our need for development and the need to not oppose nature to the point of confronting its revenge, as we are systematically confronting disaster that are not simply and only a result of climate change, but also of what we have done to our country.
Today, the construction of a framework of an integrated urban development does on the one hand meet the need to treat territory like we do with economy, health, education and development, as the body of a state, not as the space of people unrelated with each other, through the relation that they have with the state, and as the space to create welfare for every individual, and ensure that citizens and institutions are placed in a new relation. This is a big but not impossible challenge.
On the other hand, part of the challenge is for us to not forget for a moment that as we plan, development needs run their course. For this reason we must move in parallel. For this reason, we have completely changed the approach; we have abandoned the traditional old school of urban planning, as a process separated from the inherent needs of development, and as a process dictated from the top down, in an innovative process of urban planning as a consideration of the metabolism of the body of the territory.
So, this is not about a National General Plan that is a mountain of frozen maps and squares fixed for construction or lack of construction, but it is about a whole system of urban metabolism, and for the creation of conditions that will give the necessary tools to decision-makers, developers or individuals that need to get involved in this process to develop their property or to build their economy, and at the same time have them not separated from each other, preventing each other.
Thus, the National General Plan should go hand in hand with these partial plans that are at once part of the overall national plan. On the other hand it is very important that these partial plans have a guiding role, in view of national or local policies, associated with strategic investments in infrastructure with regard to transportation, telecommunications, industrial development, agricultural development, with regard to meeting the needs for housing and services, and of course with regard to strengthening at maximum Albania’s assets, starting with her beauty, and continuing with the historical, cultural and natural heritage.
Something else has to be said. This plan and this process that is being organized today with the municipalities, would have been impossible without the territorial and administrative reform, which only a few months ago gave us the possibility to reorganize the state from the foundations in terms of local government, by reducing it from hundreds of local units in just 61 of them, and by replacing the small bureaucratic fiefdoms and the breeding grounds of an endemic corruption spread throughout the territory as a result of lack of financial power, lack of planning powers, lack of administrative powers, by new economic development units.
Today Shkodra is a new unit of economic development. Vlora is a new unit of economic development. They are not any longer two cities surrounded and tightened in the grip of an intense and totally unsustainable development outside their administrative boundaries, and under the crushing pressure of dozens of municipalities around, which have actually functioned for years as tumours that have sucked energies and vital functions of these limbs so important for our country. The same can be said for all municipalities, starting from Tirana, a capital city that has suffered for 25 years the attack of a development process which it could neither plan nor orient or afford. And actually, if we look today at the administrative line of Tirana up to 6 months ago, and at the development on the map of Tirana, which is today a new municipality, we will see that Tirana of 6 months ago, the capital of Albania is like a body riddled all over with metastases.
Your challenge, the challenge of those who are called to help us, is to give a clear direction to the vision in order to restore seriously endangered balances, urban balances, ecological and economic balances. There is a lot to be said about this subject, but I want to emphasize the fact that it is not about simply foreign experts coming here with their truths, to bring ready recipes. It is about joint groups of architects, planners, planning developers coming from abroad, and those who have created their experience gradually and have established their studios in Albania.
This cooperation has a special importance, to provide the knowledge of foreign experts with the intelligence territory, without which any plan, no matter how perfect on paper, is destined to fail.
This is the first time that a National General Plan has been made in Albania, but this is not the first time that partial plans have been made. If we referred to the archives of municipalities and of this state over the last 20 years, we would find many files with partial plans and projects. But what we would understand is that it would be impossible for us to match what we see in the maps with what we have in reality. It would be impossible to match not only what we see on the plan map of Shkoder, any plan made in these 25 years, or on that of Vlora, with what we see in the territory, and it would be also impossible to match what we see in the archives of municipalities for a single building with the building corresponding to the construction permit. This means that development needs and the greed that has led to chaos, also for historical reasons, have run their course to the point that they have invalidated every effort of experts, urban planners and former architects, and have rejected every argument why so much money has been invested in all these years to do all kinds of plans.
Money has been invested by the government, the municipalities, the developers, the entrepreneurs, to do plans and projects, and for every kind of photoshop and autocad, that have been learned also by Albanian architects over these years. Were we to expose them, it would be an exhibit of illusions, because we would not find in reality almost any of what has been considered as the basis for the development that has occurred abroad.
This is why I believe that this cooperation is essential, and the interaction between foreign and Albanian experts is very important, despite one party has a much richer CV and a much more consolidated authority due to the activities it has performed abroad, while the other party’s CV might be a little poorer, and its knowledge less consolidated.
I am glad also for one thing. If we look at how this process has progressed since August, shortly after we made the reform, the ink of the reform bill had not started to dry yet, municipalities were not consolidated yet, and the mayors who won the elections after the first campaign of the reform had not taken office yet, we were prepared and made a call for “expressions of interest”, which has been published in the “Financial Times”, to attract as much foreign studios and higher expertise as possible.
What constitutes a source of encouragement and joy for us is that the interest has been enormous. There were lots for which over 15 applications have been submitted, with an average of 10 foreign studios applying for a lot. This is also a reason for those who came today in Tirana to feel good, because they won against many competitors. But it is also a reason for us to realize that we are on the right track, and that this approach is the right approach to create bridges of real cooperation with real qualitative expertise. Applications have been submitted from all over Europe, and from the United States.
Meanwhile, we wish this process to continue beyond the contract. We want those who will be included in this process, closely with municipalities, to undertake even more than what is expected by the contract and the cooperation to realize a plan. We want to move toward a path where mayors, who are today authorities with full power to make decisions for development and to give building permits, will be advised by those who are going to make plans, to detail further the development process, and to further meet specific requirements. So, to have a mayor and preferably have a chief architect that will take not the role of the decision maker, but that of the consultant, as it is advisable to be, and as many countries already have. So, for instance, we will not be like Italy that does not have this kind of respect for contemporary architects, and where mayors make often very serious mistakes.
I am very proud to have here among the architects Stefano Boeri, who is one of the brightest minds in a world facing today’s challenges, and who is also one of the most tired hearts due to his consistent failure in an attempt to enlightened decision-makers in his country, in Italy. However, I believe that both Stafano and all the others who are here today, have an opportunity to do here what they couldn’t do properly in their country. So, here you are much more welcomed, and our desire to follow the most innovative trends and the fastest ways established by knowledge and experience, and to not be subjected to a tradition that holds us hostage, is absolutely indisputable.
Once again, many thanks to everyone for being here, and for your commitment. The signing of these contracts is just the beginning of a major work, of a very big shared challenge. We will fully support all municipalities. The Regional Development Fund is available, but it is not a fund where everyone can get what they want. Everybody will get what everybody deserves, and to deserve it they should do reliable projects of high quality that are part of a reliable vision of development. In addition, they should guarantee that the money made available to them will not be wasted, as it has happened for many years, when this structure used to approve projects on behalf of political needs, in the name of electoral needs, on behalf of the needs that had all sorts of names, but one: sustainable urban, economic and social development.
Many thanks!
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The MUD and the NATP organized today a meeting to launch the drafting of local plans for 26 local units. These plans that will be supported financially and with technical expertise by the Albanian government, with a fund of 560 million ALL. Contracts were signed during this meeting between Albanian and international studios, which have won a design contest held with 26 local units at the end of 2015. It paves the way for commencement of work on the design of these local plans, a process which has occurred for the first time in the history of territory development in our country.
