Description
Mūkusalas iela (street) is situated on the bank of the river Daugava with a view to the city centre (Old Riga) in the Torņakalns neighbourhood. It is part of the Historic Centre of Riga, which is a protection zone of UNESCO World Cultural and Natural Heritage site. The area is situated between two bridges - Railway bridge and the Salu bridge and is within walking distance from the city centre.
Current Use
Torņakalns used to be an early suburb to Riga, consisting of gardens and mansions, and was the site of a functioning harbour between 1868 and 1972.. In the Soviet times, the Riga radio factory "Radiotehnika", which is nowadays abandoned, was situated in the area.
The area between the Kīleveina Ditch and the Daugava River has historically been industrial. Currently, the site of 50 hectares has mainly businesses operating for example construction companies, some services and shops. One of the largest business centres in Riga “Mūkusalas business centre” (28,000 m2) is located on the border of the site taking more than 5 hectare area in the left bank of the Daugava River between Mūkusala street and Jelgava street.
Development potential
The surrounding area of the pilot site is developing fast with the new National Library built and the University of Latvia's new campus area located next to the pilot site. There are also plans to develop a Central multi-modal public transport hub in Torņakalns that would act as regional park & ride point. The Hub will play an important role in organising transport flows in the area.
The pilot site has direct access to green territories surrounded by Kīleveina Ditch and the Daugava River. Despite its current condition, it has potential to become an appealing recreational spot as territories around it are changing. Former industrial areas are now slowly turning into office and services clusters. In the neighboring territory, there is a Science and Innovation centre. For people who work, live and in future will study in the area, the Kīleveina Ditch can serve as a place where to stop and rest for a moment. In addition, it can also be turned into a unique example of a sustainable rain water management system. The remediation of the Kileveina Ditch and developing common vision for the area aiming to high quality working environment with greeneries enables the current actors to their expand business activities in the area.
Implemented activities and results
Within Baltic Urban Lab, Riga City Council City Development department started a planning process for the redevelopment of the Mūkusalas pilot site. Several activities have been initiated in the area, and different methods have been employed to include users, inhabitants and landowners. The greatest focus has been on the student competition – a six-month process involving students from three universities. This has been a totally new approach to the early planning of an area. One challenging parameter has been the fragmented land ownership. The local project group have brought together the public sector, private actors and representatives of the people for a range of activities.
Most of the activities in this process were advisory to the formal decision-making process. However, many of the activities have influenced the decisionmakers with visions about the site. Collectively, the series of events will influence the future of Mūkusalas. This is specifically the case for the result of the student competition. Most of the activities were directed towards the private sector, and invitations were sent to professional stakeholders. Many participants were invited and encouraged to participate through targeted recruitment. For two of the activities, a more open invitation was used in order to attract a broader group of people. Non-professionals were involved in the clean-up days, but this did not influence decisions connected to the pilot site. Instead, citizens carried out work in the area and in this way acquired information about the redevelopment project. Obviously, students from various disciplines have had a great role.The local project group have continuously gathered contact information during the planning process, which has served to expand its network of contacts. The participation in meetings has mostly involved developing or expressing preferences. The focus was on group discussions in which participants gain an increased understanding about the pilot site. The clean-up day was the only activity in which participants merely received information about the future development (i.e. they were invited to “listen as spectators”, in Fung’s terminology), even though they also learned more about the area itself. During the student competition and in the separate student groups, it can be assumed that many types of communication took place.
Student Competition - as a planning method for Mukusalas
The Student Competition as a planning method was utilised in the City of Riga for the first time. Multidisciplinary student teams from three Riga-based universities participated in the competition from September 2017 to February 2018. Their task was to come up with a deveopment proposal for the pilot site - taking into account the results of baseline analysis, feedback and ideas collected from different stakeholder groups. The competition resulted in three different proposals of which the team from RISEBA university won the competition. Overall, the students managed successfully to vision the pilot site as a multifunctional urban area that would be organic for residents, existing and prospective developers and visitors.
Mūkusalas area development concept: business, knowledge and community
The development concept of the Mūkusalas area emphasises housing market potential, importance of infrastructure improvement and waterfront accessibility as well as necessary public services development to attract inhabitants and employees to the area. Please find the summary of the Mūkusalas area development concept below:
MUKUSALA AREA DEVELOPMENT CONCEPT: BUSINESS, KNOWLEDGE AND COMMUNITY
Mūkusalas apkaime – Uzņēmējdarbība, zināšanas, cilvēks (In Latvian)
More information about about the variety of stakeholder involvement methods that Norrköping has used and their outcomes, can be found in the publications Developing brownfields via public-private-people partnerships - Lessons learned from Baltic Urban Lab and Towards integrated and partnership-based planning of brownfield areas.
