Impact Project Program Development of Peat Area in Woerden
The municipality of Woerden is situated mainly in a peat area. Oxidation, shrinkage, and settling have caused significant surface level subsidence over recent decades. Based on the current use of the landscape, the rural area is expected to subside by 30 to 50 cm in the next 50 years. The urban area may even subside by as much as 75 cm.
This surface level subsidence has a major impact on built-up areas. It causes pluvial flooding of streets and roads, thus creating unsafe situations for pedestrians, cyclists, and motorists. Non-uniform settlement causes damage to houses and foundations. Roads are destroyed by traffic, gardens continue to subside, sewage pipes succumb, and service pipes break off.
To the municipality, this surface level subsidence entails that public spaces in the peat area require more effort in terms of management and maintenance than do other areas. Experience has taught that sewage and roads require maintenance and replacement approx. three times more frequently.
The village of Kanis
The municipality of Woerden has requested the incentive programme for support in the reconstruction of the village of Kanis. During the design phase, explicit attention will be focused on peat issues. Two design ateliers have examined technical innovations and the life cycle of various solution strategies. Residents of the village of Kanis have also been actively involved in the design ateliers.
Results
Lessons
Involving residents at an early stage of a reconstruction, especially an extraordinary one such as that of the village of Kanis, enables them to offer their input and call on their own know-how and networks, just like other – professional – parties involved, in order to weigh in on creative and innovative solutions. The residents are alert, aware, and committed to the solutions adopted for their own neighbourhoods. Furthermore, since they are included early on in the process, they are open to new ideas. It is a joint quest, in which residents have been able to share the values of their village and submit these as a basis for the further approach to the reconstruction.
In this process, the dreams sketched out beforehand have gradually been translated into options: options that provide insight into how dreams may look in actual practice. In some cases, residents observe that such options are undesirable in their “real world”. For example, on second thoughts, the translation of the wish for “fewer cars in the street”, viz. parking in clusters or outside the village, turns out to be inconvenient. Obviously, a street full of cars is unattractive, but doing without one’s car or parking much further away is quite a different story. This leaves the road open to another solution, a solution that does suit the residents of Kanis. And this solution may differ at street level. The design process is geared to such differences by organising street sessions. This ensures a tailored approach.
Contact person
Welmoed Visser
Gemeente Woerden
+31(0)6 51 02 70 58
visser.w@woerden.nl