Jelena works on public participation and public spaces at the Center for Environment (CZZS) in Banja Luka, Bosnia and Herzegovina. The commons are at the heart of this work, and one of the main ways to foster, and preserve them where needed, is to get people involved in citizen initiatives. From education on legal mechanisms, to ways in which they can have an impact, Jelena writes about the local experience of CZZS.

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Citizens of Banja Luka have shown, through several examples in  recent years, what an impact of civic responsibility and timely involvement in decision-making processes is. The importance of civic initiatives is reflected in the ability to mobilize citizens to engage in solving problems that are typically aimed at  local communities. Unfortunately, this important process is often neglected, and the public is involved in such a way that it meets the mere legal obligation and formality without taking into account the needs of citizens. In the example of public hearings it became clear that the mechanism was reduced to the level of “public hearing for the sake of public hearing”. Today, civic initiatives are very important, perhaps the only  form of  resistance that can significantly affect decision-makers, and an important aspect is the process of learning and sharing experiences through which one initiative passes and by that creating  encouragement  for  others to use this.

Launching a civic initiative, whether formal like the Civic Initiative for Borik, or informal like the Civic Initiative Nova Varoš, is not difficult. What is needed to start  a civic initiative is that you care about solving an issue, have will and perseverance, that is, you are willing to allocate a little spare time for your common good as well as enjoying the company of like minded people . Everything else comes by itself because there are already experiences that are being used to facilitate new initiatives. An important role in the whole process is cooperation with the media, similar initiatives, as well as openness to citizens.

Our experience has been translated into the Citizens’ Initiative Handbook, which explains the procedure for the formal launch of a civic initiative, reviews the relevant legal and subordinate acts, and also provides some concrete tips in order to avoid the most common mistakes.

Citizens  of Banja Luka, and further , are aware that by taking on civil responsibility and by collaborating, they can achieve and create real change. This is born from the Civic Initiative for Borik, the Recreational Zone of Banja Luka, the Civic Initiative Nova Varoš, as well as smaller initiatives such as those in Lazarev, which provided the playgrounds for their children independently.

Civic participation in our country is still underdeveloped. Institutions are not doing enough to inform citizens about existing mechanisms and are not interested in experimenting with participating mechanisms, which leads us to rely on ourselves to work on promoting our basic civic and political rights, and already mentioned  civic initiatives are an excellent mechanism through which we can achieve those rights . Exchanging experiences and talking  about our daily victories plays a big part in the whole process that a civic initiative passes through from its creation to the fulfillment of what it stands for, as we develop it as a society and demystify what  politics means for our everyday lives.There are also a lot of problems in Banja Luka, Republika Srpska and Bosnia and Herzegovina, which would require the launch of a variety of civic initiatives. The regulation plan for the central area of ​​the town of Banja Luka is only one in a series of such. Namely, although the plan has still not been adopted, citizens have shown disagreement and dissatisfaction with proposed planning solutions for the functioning, development and layout of the city,  but the  authorities continue to work as if nothing has happened. The public debate and the number of comments received during the public inspection have unambiguously demonstrated that this plan is not the will of the citizens. We are considering ways to approach the problem of changing this regulatory plan and we hope that many citizens join us, or launch some new initiatives independently.

As previously stated, the most important thing is that citizens who start a new initiative stay persistent, and that they freely use the Citizens’ Initiative Manual if it is a formal initiative. Cooperation with other initiatives and the media is certainly advisable. If someone is ready and has the idea to launch a civic initiative, there is no excuse now! As always, we are at your disposal for advice and assistance to citizens  regarding the launch of civic initiatives.

If the initiatives exercise enough pressure, the government will be forced to work with them because of their fear for positions, not because of transparency and the desire to improve the public participation process in decision-making. We recall that public participation in the decision-making process in terms of spatial planning and resource use is of crucial importance especially in times when institutions are oriented to the needs of investors instead of the needs of citizens who gave them a mandate.

The potential of civic initiatives could be manifested through the creation of a wider civilian front that could have a greater impact on political structures in order to exert pressure using available mechanisms such as public hearings, assembly of citizens, civic initiatives and other models. An important aspect is also to get acquainted with the public with the problems and policies that are responsible for the current situation, and often the initiatives also offer solutions for those existing problems.

Originally published here.

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People may transact through the marketplace, or they may rely on the state, but they are actively responsible for a commons. It’s a resource which is both maintained and kept up by the people, but whose ownership (whatever the asset is, both material and immaterial) belongs to posterity, the future of that community, rather than either commerce or the public sector.

As Alberto Lucarelli, a professor in constitutional law in Naples says: “commons are defined by rights”, and “by the management model rather than simply the property model”:

Commons are those resources that apart from the property that is mainly public, pursue a natural and economic vocation that is of social interest, immediately serving not the administration but the collectivity and the people composing it. They are resources that belong to all the associates and that law must protect and safeguard also in virtue of future generations.

We take these quotes from a site welcome to our eyes, called Cooperative City. Michel Bauwens has just brought our attention to this 2017 blog, Regulating the Urban Commons – learning from Italy. It shows how the awareness and strategy for making urban commons came about – particularly, it seems, from a crisis in the status of a public utility: water.

This debate developed strongly in Italy as a result of the Referendum on the Privatisation of Water, which saw a victory with 95% from the position supporting water as a commons to be protected in public interest and not to be privatised.

Following this episode, which has not yet seen a clear policy developed at national level, many city administrations have brought forward this debate at local level. The concept of commons has extended from water to many other resources, both physical and immaterial.

In terms of physical spaces, open public spaces are rather unanimously recognised as urban commons and regulations in many cities have been developed to legislate the community use of urban gardens, as an example.

Such spaces do not prove to be unproblematic as even through the property remains public, the collective access and the management costs are interpreted differently across the country.

In Rome, the Regulation of Green Spaces adopted by the City Council in 2014 foresaw that all running costs, such as water, and ordinary maintenance, such cutting the grass, should be responsibility of the communities adopting the green space, where open public access must be nevertheless be guaranteed. Given the poor condition of maintenance of public green spaces in Rome, many people accepted these conditions to improve their living standards.

Within this context, the regulation of buildings appears to be far more complex, given the higher number of variables in which the civic and the Public should find terms of agreement. To respond to these challenges, some cities developed a Regulation of the Commons, that would provide a framework for civic organisations and the public administration to find agreement on the shared management and use of urban commons.

See this primer on how Bologna triggered such a Regulation of the (Urban) Commons (the actual document here):

The Bologna Regulation is based on a change in the Italian constitution allowing engaged citizens to claim urban resources as commons, and to declare an interest in their care and management.

After an evaluation procedure, an “accord” is signed with the city specifying how the city will support the initiative with an appropriate mix of resources and specifying a joint “public-commons” management.

In Bologna itself, dozens of projects have been carried out, and more than 140 other Italian cities have followed suit. This regulation is radical in giving citizens direct power to emit policy proposals and transform the city and its infrastructure, as a enabler for this.

The key is the reversal of logic: the citizenry initiates and proposes, the city enables and supports.

The Cooperative City blog also tells a fascinating tale how different cities establish their commons, out of different modern (and even ancient) traditions. Take Naples:

In 2016 seven locations in Naples were identified as commons because of the collective commitment of citizens in their regeneration after a long period of abandonment. Before such recognition these spaces were officially identified as illegal occupation of public properties, for which all people involved were subjected to legal persecution.

The innovation of what is happening in Naples stands basically in the fact that the ancient tradition of the Usi Civici (Civic Uses) applied since medieval times to the forests for people to access and harvest wood or collect food, is now applied to urban spaces.

This is the case of the Je So’ Pazzo initiative taking place in the old mental asylum in the city centre of Naples, where a group of inhabitants, many of whom youngsters, have taken over the space to provide a series of local services, such as music classes, sports facilities and many other community-run activities.

Currently the agreement with the Municipalities implies that utility costs of the space are paid by the City Council but all activities related expenses are responsibility of the users. In terms of property rights, the space remains in public ownership and users are granted freely access as long as the activities remain of public interest and open to all citizens.

What is of interest to us at A/UK, looking for movement in society that can support a new political culture of autonomy and localisation, are the moment of opportunity that open up in top-down structures – whether it’s a national debate that has constitutional implications. Or a municipal philosophy that suddenly shifts, due to pressure from below, to a situation where “the citizenry initiates and proposes, the city enables and supports”.

We remain convinced that this happens best when there are self-generated and rich “citizens networks”, sustaining the full human agency of their participants, formulating agendas that more established power structures have to take notice of.

The story of Italian political life is as complex and trouble as it could be at the moment – but this is an example of how change can happen at very different paces.

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The sustainable use and the organisation of common resources is highly complex. With the focus on alternative, utopia-inspired urban neighbourhood initiatives in Switzerland this research project proposes experimental design and inquiry into media-based thinking tools which will help to better illustrate, demonstrate and negotiate the complexity of these sharing processes.

Commons are sustainably and collectively managed resources, such as food, or communication infrastructures, such as Wi-Fi. Commoning, then, is the activity of sharing these resources. The aspiration formulated throughout numerous alternative, utopia-inspired projects that seeks to design infrastructural aspects of urban everyday life in an alternative and autonomous way, through commoning, raises several questions. Since, based on the high level of complexity that (occasionally) comes with the shared use of resources, for the individual community member it is often difficult to estimate his or her own action and consequences to the very last detail. Especially when it comes to unpredictable, complex adaptive processes, he or she can no longer completely grasp them intuitively nor follow them without the help of media-based thinking tools — such as computer-based models or scenarios — which make those processes not only visible but also comprehensible.

For this reason, a mobile software application will be developed and tested in close collaboration with the members of three Swiss urban neighborhood projects: NeNa1 in Zurich, LeNa in Basel and Warmbächli in Bern. We will create playful simulations and design new thought-spaces for commoning. Our aim is to enable alternative and engaging ways for future social participation and transformation processes.

The four-year project, which combines methods from humanities, social science and design inquires the following central question: How could an experimental and community-based approach to design and development of a digital game system stimulate reflection on the intuitively incomprehensible complexity of commoning, make it more understandable and negotiable through playing and gaming?

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This was made possible when villages collectively contributed to building, maintaining, managing, and supplying their households with water, often from sources or springs of rivers and streams, and sometimes with ingenious methods dating as long as decades. The development of such small scale water supply systems, in community ownership, did not always survive until present day. With the modernisation and expansion of the public water supply company, some communities agreed to give up their responsibilities and have their water supplied by the company, especially since most rural communities did not have the necessary financial means to repair or replace old equipment.  But while most followed that path, some communities decided to keep their independence in that matter only seeking support when serious maintenance and repair is needed.

The Bojancici Village/Community

History

The water supply system of the village (Bojancici Vodovod) dates back to 1974. Before the system was put in place, locals and their farm animals all drank the water from the Zmajevac source. However, the residents had to carry the water in buckets all the way up the hill for their household needs. They drank the water as it was: untreated, unfiltered, straight from the source. A local resident, shoe maker by profession first initiated the idea of a community level water supply system. At the time, there were only around 11 households in the village.

The entire community contributed to building their own water supply system: the finances, their time, and hard work. An architect from Sanski Most designed the entire project. Two reservoirs were built: one at the source, housing a pump and the electrical installation. From the first reservoir, the pump takes the water all the way to the second slightly up on the hill for about 70 meters. At the second location, pipes were installed and the water is then directed to each household. The locals refer to the water supply system as divided into two eras: before and after the war. After, newer and more efficient pumps were installed, ‘the best you could find in those times’.

Now there are around 50 households in the Bojancici village, though the locals who live there say that only around 30 are inhabited all year round, the rest serve as village homes for all their Bosnian neighbours who emigrated.

Organisation and Decision-Making

The village has its own council made up of 4-5 residents elected through majority voting. This is done unofficially, on a smaller scale than even the ‘mjesna zajednica’ – or local community association that all towns and villages have. The locals joke about such meetings just being called any time, and happening in someone’s garden. The same council also makes decisions on behalf of the residents concerning water and the water supply system.

A resident was chosen to be responsible for the monitoring, inspection, and maintenance of the water supply system. They go to the source reservoir every couple of days to check the water levels, and handle all repairs needed, most often for the pumps. The maintenance person is also responsible for collecting money for the water, and every month they get compensated with a wage of 2KM (1Euro)/ household for this work. The rules of the water supply system are unwritten, and mostly related to times of drought. If the water levels are too low, then the village implements water reductions. It is said that people don’t need to be told, or warned, simply every time this happens residents know it is time to reduce their water consumption. There have been conflicts in the past, but very small scale. Namely on one occasion, a local resident defied the reduction agreement- they were made aware to avoid doing that, but seemingly it is inconceivable that someone would have their water cut off if they don’t abide by the reduction rules.

Water Quality and Safety

The water is regularly tested at the local hospital in Sanski Most, and is deemed drinkable, despite the fact that water supply system in the Bojancici village has no filters, and the only purifier added is chalk. The person responsible for the maintenance recalled that one day the residents decided that they would use chlorine to purify their water. Given the instructions of the council and the advice of the public water supply system from Sanski Most, the chlorine was purchased and used as instructed. However, months later, mothers in the village complained that the chlorine had affected the children’s skin, so ever since, the water purification returned to the traditional method of using chalk.

Challenges

There are two main challenges for the village’s water supply system. First, the two pumps they have are already too old: they stop working and need regular repairs, however recently they were told that given their age, it had become nearly impossible to find spare parts for them. Sometimes they can go one year without needing repair, but most often, less. The cost to repair each pump comes around 300-500 BAM (150-250Euros). Secondly, the entire system needs a general repair and renovation. The village was given a quote of 48 000 BAM (24 000 Euros) to not just refurbish the entire system, but also build a third reservoir which would act as a filtering station, thus making the water drinkable even in times of severe rainfall. The residents admit that unfortunately they cannot pool together such a large sum of money, and they get by with what they have, simply repairing the existing pumps, as long as they can.

The pump used to supply the entire Bojancic village with water.

The Question of the Public Water Supply System

The Sanski Most public water supply company reached the beginning of the Bojancici village some time ago, yet the residents refuse to link into the main water supply network, and want to keep their own. There is a good reason for this, and it stems from their context: many residents keep farm animals who need a lot of water. The system they have in place is much more cost efficient for their needs.  The residents currently pay 0.3 BAM (0.15 Euros) per cubic meter of water. The price of the water is calculated based on the monthly electricity bill. The monthly water bill depends on how much each household uses, according to their water meters. In contrast the public water supply, costs almost 4 times that amount. On top of that there is also a one off fee of 1000 BAM to be paid to the public water supply company. The locals say if they had that kind of money to spare, they would rather it went into refurnishing their own system, and keeping their affordable water prices. With 1000 BAM from each household, and 50 of them currently in the village, the total sum would pay for the entire renovation of the Bojancici Vodovod.

The Dabar Community

The village of Brajica Tavan, is located in the Dabar area of the municipality of Sanski Most, being separated from the town by a series of steep hills. Most local residents own summer cottages in the area, and there are few permanent residents left. In the past there used to be 32 households, but nowadays there are only 7 left. The village is surrounded by areas of outstanding beauty and right at the bottom of the hill on top of which it is located, the source of the Dabar river can be found. The source has an abundance of drinking water, and it also supplies the village of Brajica Tavan with water. However, this case is rather special, as the system itself was built by an innovating engineer from Belgrade back in the 80s. It was completed in 1988.

The Technical Aspects of the Water Supply System

There are two reservoirs in place, one at the source of the river, which accumulates the water from a cave and one 180 meters up a steep hill, where the water is pumped to before being distributed to each household. The original ‘eco’ pump was designed by the famous engineer and innovator from Belgrade, Milos Jakovljevic and is still currently in operation, the most recent improvements being completed in 2014 with a grant of 2000 BAM (1000 Euros) from the Norwegian Government. The reservoir has a total capacity of 60 cubic meters, three times the size of the Bojancici Vodovod.

The pump itself is special because it does not require electricity to run and to pump the water 180 meters up on the hill, and it doesn’t even have an engine to power it, being purely mechanical. It uses the energy of the water pressure through hydraulic shock, and the pure kinetic energy of falling water to pump it to a much higher level than the source. Apart from the village of Brajica Tavan, the hydraulic pump is operation in two other locations: Celinac and Prnjavor (BiH).

Organisation and Decision-making

The village has a council to represent them at the Zdena mjesna zajednica (local community association). They are also responsible for the water supply system. Therefore, any decisions taken at the village level concerning it will then be proposed and voted on by the larger community association that they are part of. This also takes place in case they want to improve, adjust, or adapt anything related to their local water supply system. There is one person from the village responsible for its inspection and supervision.

The hydraulic pump installed in the late 80s is still in operation today

Challenges

One of the main issues that concern some residents is the fact that not everyone respects the rules of moderate consumption. Sometimes the reservoir can be emptied, while the rest of the residents are left without water until it is filled again by the pump at the source of the river. The observed cases were said to be related to temporary rather than permanent residents though.

The independent, self-run water supply systems all bear similarities. First off, they are built for and managed by  small communities. The resource used is a source of drinking water. Then a pump pushes the water into a reservoir or accumulation facility, in which the water is (sometimes) treated and then supplied to the households in the local community. A person, or a group of people is responsible for its maintenance, while the decision making is done by the local communities. All of these characteristics make the community managed water supply systems in the area of Sanski Most cases of commons. They are sustainable, as in the case of the Dabar community, where not even electricity is used to supply an entire village with safe drinking water. They are characterized by fair access too, where residents pay a small, affordable price (if any) for the water, and in times of drought all residents must reduce their water consumption so that everyone can still benefit. The local residents have collective control over the resource and its management.

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What is more, the relevant research conducted in the past fifty years in many areas, such as fisheries, forests, pastures, water, urban governance, technology, has also provided solutions to resolving problems that society is facing today, and will also do so in the future.

The World Commons Week begins on the 4th of October after which local events will take place around the world, and well as two conferences in the US. The most accessible part of the week, to everyone, will be at the end of the event, on the 12th of October, with a series of 24h live seminars which take place at noon in all time zones.

Planned Webinars:

Source: International Association for the Study of Commons

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Intervention in Public Spaces

Case one: The Zaikin Park

The rehabilitation of the park took place with the involvement of the local community, with the aim to increase social events and use of the park. An actively involved community was considered crucial in the development of the project. Surveys and sociological studies were distributed in the local neighbourhood in order to identify needs and the public opinion related to the space and its future, and a series of pilot events included workshops for children, concerts, and picnics. As a result, the local community got involved in the cleaning of the park area as well as collecting signatures to have rubbish bins places around the park. In order to improve communication and transparency related to the project, the organisation put up a notice board with announcements and plans in Romanian and Russian, as well as a postbox, which invited locals to submit their comments, suggestions, and views.

Case two: B68 – Free Art Space

Real public spaces, free of control or economic activities are prerequisites for the sound functioning of a democratic society. In this regard, Oberliht considered that a civic society’s role in maintaining public spaces accessible to the community was essential. The main idea behind the project was to reconfigure the spaces available with small interventions that respond to educational and social needs, to provide an opportunity for debates, and to connect people to the places in question. Thus B68 was conceived as a space/ area free from economic interests and control, where public issues can be discussed and analysed, and where art and cultural activities can make these discussions and debates more visible.

Case three: The Days of Public Space

An annual event that lasts for 2-4 days aimed at discussing, learning, and entertaining the public on issues related to arts, culture and public spaces. The first edition took place in 2015, and it featured a cultural programme, which explored urban civic networks, rights to culture, improving transparency in the cultural sector, legal instruments for urban artists, crowdfunding for civic initiatives, and film screenings, community picnics, artistic performances, theatre, and concerts. In 2016 the programme focused on resisting the enclosure of public spaces and encouraging their democratisation. The 2018 edition addressed the topic of culture as a common good and or ‘commons’. In particular most attention was paid to the residential areas of Chisinau, in order to foster innovation and creative initiatives.

Case four: Zpatiu/Zpace

Zpatiu is not only a physical space, but also the independent art scene in Moldova. It serves as a platform for the development of contemporary art and culture, the theorising of such forms and practices as well as their relevance to the social sphere. Firstly, Zpatiu has a research character focusing on theories, debates, presentations and seminars. Secondly, it facilitates the production and dissemination of artistic and cultural works, by making space available for rehearsals, exhibitions, performances, and screenings.

More information about Oberliht and their work is available here.

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Revolutionary Reformism as an Ideology

The two current dominant ideologies (socialism, neoliberalism) are being challenged by another approach. It seeks to lead the way to a radical change of the system and our societies. Quite often, when pressed with issues of unsustainability, many would hail the option or need for a revolution or the milder alternative of reforming the current system. But another ideological option is revolutionary reformism. It results from the idea that just a few reforms cannot change the system in a way in which it would lead to real, structural change. On on the contrary, ‘a chain of far-reaching reforms that complement and strengthen each other, and at the same time, raise political awareness’, will do so.

Local innovation and sustainability  

Revolutionary reformism and cities are connected by the development and popularity of establishing commons as a means of governing urban aspects of life. Despite the fact that this has existed for centuries, it has only been in the last several years that more and more urban communities have chosen it as a means of governance and organisation.

An important ecological aspect that has resulted from this is that the community initiatives, whether in social, economic, or technological terms, have led to more open and participatory processes that are usually local solutions, reinforce each other, are resilient by nature, and provide an alternative to issues that stem from the globalised system, such as the reliance on fossil fuels, or the dominance of multinational corporations in the food chain. Two important examples for this are the increased initiatives that foster local production and consumption of food (community gardens, subscriptions to fresh produce from local farms, coops that supply local products, etc), and local energy communities or coops. In this way, the profit also remains at the local level for the residents, and quite often they re-invest it in the same initiatives for further development.

This is not to argue that in this way these initiatives would pave the way to the end of globalisation. Even if such initiatives increase by day, and provide a more ecological alternative to the current dominant system, this is not an idea which promotes a complete isolation. As the author points out, ‘coffee will still come from Africa’, and while some of the products and services can be local, we will still trade with other regions.

Governning Cities: Actors

The public or private question of ownerships usually dominates the discussion on the management of cities. This also corresponds to the two dominant political ideologies: left and right. As it has been the case historically, on many issues, and the example given here is that of housing, groups blindly propose two mainstream solutions, and that is the left proposing that the government owns and manages housing, whereas those belonging the right of the political spectrum hail private ownership as the best option. But these two sides often ignore the citizens and sideline them and their potential from such discussions, despite the fact that historically, citizens’ initiatives have been responsible for innovation and sound management, and housing is no exception to this rule, in the past, but also currently as groups of citizens mobilise to manage housing as groups or coops.

The author stresses the importance of all three actors being important for the management of societies (public/justice, citizens/autonomy, private/market), thus forming a triangle of options, and  emphasizing the need for a ‘third way’, acknowledging the importance of autonomy, the dismantling of the hierarchical state-market axis, and the need to transition to a more autonomous perspective, moving away from the work-money mentality of the industrial society.

Towards Public-Civic Partnerships

The revival of the commons has proven that a third way of governing and organising cities and society exists, and this is based primarily on autonomy and cooperation, challenging the traditional, hierarchical, top down approach of market-state, and with this the concept of public-private partnerships, which have put a lot of strain on citizens, leading to a loss of public space, loss of control over policy, all while citizens paid more for services.

In reality a pure ‘commonism’ is just as restrictive as a dominant public or private perspective. But the commons, with the state as its partner, can lead to more innovation, allowing for communities to build the cities they wish to live in, or propose policy they need, while enhancing creative solutions to various issues. By proposing cooperation, for example in Bologna or Ghent, public-civic partnerships lead the way to co-creation and co-production, thus many explored options are bringing positive results.

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Perhaps the closest example of a public-civic partnership in the Balkans is that of the Rojc Community Centre in Pula, Croatia. In the recent study on Commons in South East Europe, Tomislav Tomasevic detailed the history of the partnership between civic actors and the local government, the challenges, the governing model and institutions, community, and particular aspects of why the building can be classified as a commons according to Ostrom’s 8 principles of Commons Governance. Full text below:

Rojc Community Centre, Pula, Croatia

Author: Tomislav Tomasevic

DESCRIPTION OF THE GOVERNING PRACTICE

History of the Rojc Community Centre begins in 1870, under the Austro-Hungarian monarchy, when one of the biggest buildings in the city of Pula was constructed for the marine military school. The building was used for the same purpose when this territory went to Italy between the two World Wars, but also when it became part of Yugoslavia after World War II and was named after a fallen partisan hero, Karlo Rojc.  In 1991, when the war began, the Yugoslav National Army left the building and until 1997 it was used to host around 600 war refugees and several humanitarian organisations. After the refugees left, some organisations started to squat there—they illegally occupied the devastated building for their use.

In 1998, Pula’s local government decided to place around 30 cultural, environmental and youth organisations that requested space for their work in the Rojc building. These organisations invested and renovated the space using their own resources and did not pay any rent.  They had to find a way to cooperate to use the building, so some form of non-formal self-management was initiated and its body was called “Council of Rojc”. It represented all the users with the goal of making basic common rules about the use of the building. The City of Pula held a public tender in 2002 for new organisations interested in using the building spaces, and in 2007 there were already around 100 organisations that had a space in Rojc. The City of Pula was paying for the building maintenance, but this process was not transparent to the users and, according to the users, there was a lot of mismanagement.

In 2008, user organisations organised a big public protest and pushed for a meeting with the mayor of Pula, complaining about the management of the Rojc building by the public company “Castrum”, owned by the City of Pula. After these protests initiated by the user organisations,  the “Coordination of the Community Centre Rojc” was established in 2008 in order  to co-manage the Rojc building by the users of the building and the City of Pula,  which is the owner of the building and pays for its maintenance. In order to better coordinate the use of the Rojc building among the user organisations and to better negotiate with the City of Pula about the governance of the building, the “Rojc  Associations Alliance” was established in 2012. It formally elects three representatives of the users who constitute half of the membership in the Coordination. Ever since, the representatives of users have been continuously pushing for transparency in financial expenditures for the community centre and for better management. For example, telecommunication companies illegally put mobile phones antennas on the roof of the building and for years, due to the lack of City’s interest, they paid the City an amount smaller than the amount of electricity they were using. Thanks to the engagement of Rojc Alliance representatives in the Coordination, they were finally forced to pay an annual rent of around €35.000 in addition to the electricity bill. These funds are used to finance necessary investments in the Rojc building.

Resource of the Rojc Community Centre is the building, which is one of the biggest buildings in Pula. The building was built in the 19th century and it is a rectangular shape with an inner yard. The floor surface of the building is around 3.259 m2, while in total, with all floors included, the total surface of the building space is an enormous 17.068 m2. A big part of the building space is painted by artists, which effectively also makes it one of the largest galleries. The building has a huge inner yard, green areas and recreational areas that surround it and a large parking place. It is owned by the City of Pula and maintained by the city-owned company Castrum, which also maintains other buildings in the city’s ownership.

Community of the Rojc Community Centre are the 108 organisations that are using the Rojc building. All these organisations have rent contracts with the City of Pula for using a particular space in the building, and they are also entitled to use the common building spaces like halls, corridors and toilets. When looking at the issues they cover, 34 of the user organisations work on art and culture, 22 on sport and recreation, 8 on national minorities, 12 on psycho-social work, 17 on children and youth, 5 on war veterans, 4 on technical culture and 6 on some other issues. Most of these organisations undertake activities and events that are used by citizens of Pula, both in and outside Rojc, so users of the building go way beyond the 108 organisations, but they are not considered a community. All 108 user organisations are on the same mailing list for exchanging information, but there is a subgroup of these organisations which is governing the Rojc Community Centre as commons. These are the 19 organisations that are members of the Rojc Association Alliance. The Alliance is responsible for taking care of the common space in the Rojc Community Centre, like the “Living Room”, which is a multifunctional space that all organisations in Rojc use for events but is also open every working day for all citizens of Pula. The Alliance also elects three members of the Coordination of the Community Centre Rojc. Currently two out of these three members are women, one of whom is the president of the Coordination.

Institutions for using the Rojc Community Centre are mostly defined in a document called “Decision on the Use of Office Space in the Community Centre Rojc” which was adopted by the mayor of Pula in 2013 after consultations with the users. This Decision, which defines mostly constitutional rules, enlists all 108 user organisations and regulates their contract period, with obligations to invest in and renovate their rented space. The Decision also regulates how user organisations pay for electricity consumption and, exceptionally, for water consumption, if they are large water users. The Decision defines the membership and mandate of the Coordination of the Community Centre Rojc, which proposes the Centre’s “House Rules”, “Maintenance Plan” and “Long-term Development Plan”. Operational rules for daily use of the Rojc Community Centre are defined in the House Rules of the Centre, which were adopted by the mayor in July 2011, after consultations with user organisations. The House Rules define what is and what isn’t allowed in Rojc in terms of daily use. For example, the building is open for public from 7 am until midnight, which is controlled by the professional porter and security service. After midnight, user organisations can use the building for their office work, but they have to report that to the porter, while in case of activities like concerts, which are open for public outside normal working hours, user organisations have to receive a special permit from the City of Pula.

Challenges of the Rojc governance as commons are several. First, the community of users does not have the power to manage the building as they see fit, but have to seek agreement with the city administration of Pula. This relationship is quite unstable and because it lacks a more formal institutionalised framework, it sometimes relies on the goodwill of a few individuals in the city administration. According to the Alliance members, local government is not interested in developing the Rojc Community Centre further, so they have to advocate within the Coordination for better management, transparency and further development of Rojc. These tensions with the local government are risky for most of the user organisations as they are afraid they will lose their space. An example of this wa  the City of Pula’s recent decision to charge rent, even though there was no legal basis for that in the existing contracts. Out of 108 user organisations, only Green Istria and Monteparadiso decided to oppose the amendments to their contract which would have them pay for rent. The second challenge is that the three representatives of the user organisations within the Coordination are doing this work voluntarily. It is in fact a big responsibility, because they are approached by both the porter and security service and the users when something doesn’t work, which often happens on a daily basis. This is part of a bigger challenge as only a small minority of user organisations are members of the Alliance that contributes to the common governance of Rojc. There are also no clear criteria for receiving the building space for user organisations, and since all the contracts expire in December 2018, there is an opportunity for the community of user organisations to define it. This could make all user organisations see it is in their interest to participate in common governance, which would put the community of users in a better negotiating position to demand that the City of Pula go a step further and institutionalise the new governance model.

ANALYSIS OF THE GOVERNING PRACTICE USING OSTROM’S 8 DESIGN PRINCIPLES

1. a) clearly defined boundaries

The Rojc Community Centre as a building has clearly defined boundaries that prevent access to unauthorised users. It is a building with several entrances controlled by the porter in daytime and security service in night-time, while all the entrances are locked from midnight until 7 am. During the night, entrance is forbidden and staying in the building after these hours is only allowed with permission. The authorised users are the 108 organisations that have contracts for renting a particular office space, which is locked and the keys are in the possession of the organisation using the space.

1. b) congruence between appropriation & provision rules & local conditions

There is insufficient connection between rules for use and rules for taking care of Rojc as commons. The appropriation rules apply to all 108 user organisations and are mostly defined by the users and the local government in the Decision and the House Rules. However, when it comes to provision rules, which would in case of Rojc be the maintenance of the building, there are minimal requirements by the user organisations that consist of paying for the electricity costs and rent, which comes up to around €0,33 per m2 per month with all taxes included. The income from the rent from organisations goes to the City of Pula, while the income from the rent from telecommunications companies covers the investments in the Rojc building. However, this only makes for a smaller part of around 200.000 eur of annual costs for running maintenance and minimal investments, so the rest is covered by the City of Pula. The budget of the Rojc Community Centre is spent by the public company Castrum and decided on by the Coordination.

1. c) collective-choice arrangements

In terms of decision-making, all users can participate in making rules for using the Rojc Community Centre, but the final power lies with the City of Pula, which owns of the building and pays for its maintenance. Operational rules of the Rojc Community Centre are mostly defined in the House Rules, which are proposed by the Coordination and adopted by the mayor of Pula. The Coordination has three members who represent the City and three members who represent the Rojc Association Alliance. However, out of 108 user organisations in Rojc, only 19 decided to become members of the Alliance, which takes care of the common interests of all user organisations and the future development of the Rojc Community Centre. When the House Rules were adopted in 2011, there were consultations in which all user organisations could participate.

1. d) monitoring

When it comes to monitoring the use of the Rojc Community Centre, there is a complex system in place, as there are various actors involved in the governance.

The local government advised by the Coordination monitors whether the 108 user organisations are respecting the legal obligations from the rent contract, while the public company Castrum monitors whether user organisations are paying the rent and electricity costs. The porter and security professionals, paid from the Rojc Community Centre budget, monitor the daily use of the Rojc Community Centre and whether Hose Rules are respected. The monitoring of the implementation of the annual budget by the public company Castrum and implementation of the Maintenance Plan is done by the Coordination, and mostly by its members from the Alliance. These three members of the Coordination, and especially the president of the Coordination who is currently from the user organisation Green Istria, are actually monitoring whether all the rules are being implemented.

1. e) graduated sanctions

There are clear sanctions for not following rules and these are graduated for violators. Constitutional rules are set in the Decision, which also defines graduated sanctions for violation of these rules. The Decision, for example, regulates that if a user organisation fails to pay Castrum for electricity and other costs for 2 months, their electricity will be shut down. This has happened several times, and when the organisations paid for their obligations, the electricity was restored. The Decision also regulates that if user organisations do not pay Castrum for 4 months in a row, their rent contract will be terminated and they will not be able to use that particular space in the Rojc Community Centre anymore. If the House Rules are violated, there will be a warning issued by the local government in consultations with the Coordination. If user organisations receive three warnings, they will also receive the gravest sanction—termination of the rent contract and expulsion from the Rojc Community Centre. According to the current president of the Coordination, this has never happened because all user organisations stopped violating rules after receiving warnings.

1. f) conflict–resolution mechanisms

There are some conflict-resolution mechanisms in the Rojc Community Centre.

When there are conflicts between user organisations, they complain to the porter, who usually contacts the president of the Coordination and other members of the Coordination, and they then engage in conflict resolution. User organisations are starting to skip the porter and complain about violation of the House Rules directly to the members of the Coordination chosen among the users, although these members do not have formal mandates to resolve such conflicts. They do so because they know that the Coordination members can propose to the local government to issue formal warnings to the violators. In the past few years these were only minor cases, which were quickly resolved, except for one case when something was broken in the building and after the Coordination complained to the local government, they issued an official warning before termination of the rent contract.

1. g) minimal recognition of rights to organise

There is recognition of the current co-management model by the local government of Pula. This is evident from the Decision adopted by the mayor of Pula, which clearly acknowledges the Coordination’s mandate and half of its membership being elected by the user organisations of Rojc through the Alliance. However, the power to validate these decisions remains within the local government, as the city is the owner of the building and pays for its maintenance. The Alliance aims to make the current co-management structure more formalised by setting up the Rojc Community Centre as a separate legal entity, which would be founded by the City of Pula on one side and the Rojc Association Alliance on the other. This would institutionalise the balance of power and formalise the existing public-civic partnership. For greater autonomy the user organisations would have to self-finance some of the maintenance costs for the building without the local government, and they are making some steps in that direction through a coffee shop in the Living Room, along with a future hostel and restaurant.

1. h) nested enterprise

Not applicable as the Rojc Community Centre is not part of the bigger resource, but there is a possibility of it becoming part of a network of similar community centres in Croatia in the future, as there are certain eu project tenders which would finance and network similar community centres in Croatia.

CONCLUSIONS

The Rojc Community Centre could be characterised as commons, since it has a clearly defined resource, community of users and usage rules which are made by the users. However, the biggest problem lies in the fact that users are sharing the power to make and enforce rules with the local government of Pula, which is the owner of the building and finances all of the building’s maintenance costs. That is why this is not a typical commons case, but some form of co-management by the local government and community of users, which would be best described as a public-civic partnership. This is also reflected in the analysis of the case using Ostrom’s design principles, which makes it clear that all user organisations can take part in setting the rules for using individual spaces and common spaces of the Rojc Community Centre, but only a small part of users is participating in commons governance. It is also not sustainable that most of the responsibilities for negotiating with the local government, monitoring the rules and resolving conflicts relies on three user members of the Coordination who are doing this as voluntary work, and most of the user organisations are freeriding on the benefits of their commons work. There is an opportunity to resolve this because rent contracts will expire at the end of 2018, so new criteria for providing and using building space could be established by the community of all users. This is also an opportunity to define obligations for user organisations to contribute to the commons in labour and money, which would be especially helpful for those in the Coordination, who are the de facto managers of the Rojc Community Centre.

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More information about the Community Centre can be found here.

Tomašević, T., Horvat, V., Midžić, A, Dragšić, I., Dakić, M. (2018): Commons in South East Europe: Case of Croatia, Bosnia & Herzegovina and Macedonia. Institute for Political Ecology, Zagreb.

Photo by Fabio Santaniello Bruun on Unsplash

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