Top Story
ULI Poland Product Councils Day Recap - June 2022
PRODUCT COUNCIL DAY, member only meetings, once again proved to be a fantastic platform for discussion and exchange of ideas.
June 24, 2022
Affordable housing and green transition are the biggest challenges, that the market is facing right now, fueled by growing interest rates and inflation. Our cities need urban regeneration to provide thriving neighborhoods and this needs to happen in a close cooperation between public and private. The retail parks replace shopping malls, the offices are not dead, but changed and logistics is thriving – concluded local and international experts gathered at the ULI Poland Conference: REINVENTING NEIGBOURHOODS, which was held on June 8-9, 2022, at the Raffles Europejski Hotel in Warsaw.
– A year ago, we talked about how the post-pandemic world will look like and a lot of things happened ever since. We have seen logistics, residential for rent and offices transactions picking up. Just as we looked forward to a fantastic year, Russia invaded Ukraine, bringing inflation, population growth and incredible challenges for everybody. At the same time people did not stop working, and the communities still live. We need to reinvent the neighborhoods and make the urban footprint better for the people, in collaboration between public and private sectors and not forgetting the net zero challenges – said Soren Rodian Olsen, Managing Director of Logicenters at NREP and Chair of ULI Poland in his welcome. – It seems like we are moving from one crisis into another, but at the same time we cannot lose sight of the long-term perspective and of the day-to-day perspective – inclusivity, equality, the climate, the design the investment, repurposing, private and public collaboration – agreed Lisette van Doorn, Chief Executive Officer, ULI Europe.
Marco Dall’Orso, author and renowned urban regeneration expert, shared his experiences in the opening keynote presentation: – Studying the past is important, because cities follow trajectories that can lead to prosperity or poverty. Understanding from where we come from, helps understand the present and to prepare for the future. Knowing what ingredients are at play in creating inclusive and diverse communities, we create them, where they are naturally missing and change their destiny by providing it with a collective sense of purpose. Creating a thriving urban community is not a “switch” and it is rarely a quick revolution. It is a long-term journey or better, a state of mind, an attitude, a continuous effort toward the pursue and maintenance of a virtuous condition. Flexibility and adaptation is the only protection from the uncertain futures. The winners of the future are the communities that are future–ready.
Jens Krammer Mikkelsen, Director of Urban Development at NREP and former Lord Mayor of Copenhagen, presented the steps of transformation of the capital of Denmark, which in the 1980s had an unemployment rate of 17.5 percent, a growing elderly population and huge budget shortfalls and is now an example of a city that many want to emulate.: – Transforming the city is not a quick fix but a long haul. Lessons learned from the process: Infrastructure is the key. Make public ownership transparent. Merge public entities and assets. Encourage national and local government collaboration. Secure the political alliance but minimize the political interference.
Presentations were followed by discussions on various burning issues. How to make our cities and neighbourhoods provide a better quality of life, what benefits cooperation of the private and public sectors brings, how urban space in Europe will change by the green transformation were the key issues discussed by an international group of urban planners, real estate experts and local administration in “Let’s do it together” session. – In the collaboration between public and private sector the share of responsibilities became blurred, the complexity increased, the challenges are higher – especially in the past couple of years. So how is it going to work in practice? – First of all, let’s be frank. Then let’s educate ourself and our communities so that the municipalities understand business processes and vice versa. Educate, but not persuade so that the person can make its own educated choice. My final tip for local government is to create a one stop show for the business, integrating our services for the external partners. – summarised the discussion Katarzyna Gruszecka-Spychała, Gdynia vice-president for economy.
“Something old, something new” was a session focused on how we can improve the overall experience the people have in the cities and pragmatic solutions with focus on city development, ESG and decarbonization. “We can’t have buildings like we used to have in the past and we need to rebuild them. One of the reasons is that people love old building, and it is really worth doing it” – emphasized Ron Bakker, Founding Partner of London-based architecture firm, PLP Architecture. Some of the buildings require renovating and restoring, some structures in the cities do not function anymore and this is something with which the architects and urbanists will be dealing in the next decade. Preserving old buildings in the dense cities is the key, even if at the end of the process they are not recognizable anymore. We need new technologies and new materials and to design flexible enough to allow various future scenarios.
Another important topic was the future of the CEE region and how to facilitate the cities to grow in the right direction. Densification, transformation, mixed-use, timber are the answer – concluded Ondrej Chybik, Founding Partner CHYBIK+KRISTOF from Prague. The population is growing rapidly and so are the cities in the region – the citizens are moving back from rural. Buildings in our regions, even those from the communistic era can still be transformed and refurbished into something contemporary. Mixed use is important and essential and covid proved that the mono-functional areas are not good enough to survive crisis. Timber structure are one of the answers to the question how to recycle and grow in a sustainable way, with negative carbon footprint.
Last but not least, the participants of the conference discussed the different angles and challenges of the real estate market in the “Capital Markets” panel, moderated by Kevin Turpin, Regional Director of Capital markets CEE, Colliers. With the outbreak of war in Ukraine, some investors have to put their plans for Poland on hold for the time being, which is a concern as 98% of the capital comes from outside of the country. However, others, including domestic CEE capital, particularly Czech and Hungarian, have been increasingly active over the last 5 years and in recent quarters. In line with the 15-minute city concept, some retail schemes have become less popular with consumers and require a refresh or perhaps even repurposing altogether. Retail parks continue to expand across the market, in cities as small as 20,000 inhabitants. Despite hybrid working practices becoming the norm, offices will still play an important role in business life and company culture. While some office buildings (as with all sectors) may need an uplift to keep them relevant and in compliance with increasing ESG regulations, they should preserve their value over the long-term perspective. During the last couple of years, the industrial and logistics sector has become one of the most sought-after and traded asset classes. Although we may see some changes in the demand structure as a result of the boom in e-commerce gradually slowing down, and perhaps recording an increase in ‘near shoring’ or ‘friend shoring’, the sector will continue to thrive. Finally, with rising inflation and the cost of debt, for all property types, we can expect to see greater attention put towards the residential for rent (PRS) sector. Rising mortgage rates and declining affordability will most likely lead to a narrowing buyer pool and an increasing number of renters. We are therefore recording more developers and investors actively looking at this sector.
– We have an affordable housing challenge exacerbated by covid and inflation. But there are additional challenges – city revenues plummet which impacts their ability to offer infrastructure and services. We are thinking how to bring greenery into and around our buildings. Decarbonisation agenda is something that the cities are also aspiring to. Resilience has taken a new meaning related to the demand for flexible space that can change over time. We need to design offices that if needed can also become a residential development. All of these changes come in the times when city face budget deficits from corona expenses. The war in Ukraine has significant implications for the energy security, food security, cost of construction. A “15min city” is not new concept but need it now more than ever – summarized Alice Charles, the lead for Urban Transformation at the World Economic Forum during her closing keynote speech.
MORE CONFERENCE PHOTOS TO COME. Visit us again soon!
Don’t have an account? Sign up for a ULI guest account.