In this year's edition of the Kraków Civic Budget, the project for a park on Karmelicka Street won. Although there were many ideas for development - a hotel, a cinema, a multi-level parking lot, apartment buildings - for more than twenty years there has been a breach in the very center of the historic city, a remnant of the assembly ground of the former military barracks. A parking lot operates on the pothole in anticipation of changes.
A simple and meaningful play on words: PARKing. Smog. Scarcity of green spaces. Tree cutting. Traffic problems. A flood of tourists. There are many problems in Krakow and one park will not solve them, but the city authorities today find it difficult to ignore the increasingly strong voice of residents. In 2021, on a degraded plot of land in the center of Krakow, a park should be created - an area that primarily serves residents, not visitors. City Councilman Lukasz Maślona, who is involved in its creation, stresses:
"We have to make sure that people don't move out of the center, because it will cease to function as a piece of the city, but only as a place for short-term rentals and party and culturalactivities."
first there was to be commercial activity
In the late 1990s, the military moved out of the center of Krakow, leaving the historic barracks building on Rajska Street and - just behind it, bounded by Karmelicka and Dolnych Młynów Streets - the parade ground. The barracks building was occupied by the Provincial Public Library, while the square was fenced off from it and put up for sale. In 1999 it was bought by the Portico Galicia company, which was to build a parking lot, cinema and hotel there. The plans were not carried out. In the course of the work, the investor decided that the cost of preparing the land for the construction of an edifice with an underground parking lot would be too high, as the riverbed used to be located there - so he withdrew. The plot changed hands - it was bought by the Irish company Howard Holdings. As the last owner did not pay land taxes, the case went to court and eventually in 2012 the plot was returned to the city again.
view of the parking lot from the library windows
photo: Katarzyna Jagodzinska
residents said "no"
The situation, however, was already different. In 2013 the magistrate again tried to sell the plot, and even found a buyer interested in it, who wanted to build a hotel and apartment building there. However, residents protested. One of the people who mobilized them at the time was Monika Bogdanowska, PhD, from the Krakow University of Technology, who today holds the position of Malopolska Regional Monument Conservator. It was then that the city began developing a Local Development Plan. In view of the failure of private investments in the area, the idea of building the headquarters of the Institute of National Remembrance on the side of Dolnych Młynów Street appeared, and for balance - to close the plot with a development on Karmelicka Street. According to this vision, the plot was to be built up thirty percent, and the rest was to be used for greenery. In practice, however, green was to be roughly sixty percent of the plot. The public side, however, was not satisfied with this.
green tract
In 2017, the development plan for the site was put out for public review. Residents were of the opinion that the entire plot should function as a green area. Four activists, Monika Bogdanowska, Mariusz Waszkiewicz, Natalia Nazim and Lukasz Maślona, launched a petition "3 x YES to greenery in the Rajska area." In addition to the park, it also concerned the preservation of old trees on Dolnych Młynów Street and the so-called green Krupnicza Street, which, together with the park and the rescued trees, was to create a green route between Planty and Krakowski Park. Because greenery - as Natalia Nazim points out - is very scarce in this part of the Old City.
A view of the former tobacco factory on Dolnych Młynów Street from the parking lot; one of the most fashionable bar-entertainment complexes in Cracow at the moment, TYTANO, operates here; in the background, the stand of trees fought for in 2017 in the petition "3 x YES to greenery around Rajska"
photo: Katarzyna Jagodzinska
Lukasz Maślona also notes that "back then it wasn't so popular to talk about climate change, we were simply looking for a green area to relax and meet. Now, after several years of hot weather, we know that this is very important when it comes to mitigating the effects of high temperatures."
Within a week, four thousand two hundred people signed the petition (more than a thousand signed the paper version, with which activists stood on the street).
urban promises
The clear and decisive voice of the residents led the mayor to accede to the public's wishes while the development plan was still in the works - ninety-four percent of the plot was earmarked for green space, and six percent on the side of Karmelicka Street for development, which is to be park infrastructure. The plan was passed in April 2018, then the public consultations promised by the mayor were to begin and... nothing happened.
Maślona, who was elected city councilor in the October elections, submitted an amendment to the budget guaranteeing funds for the consultation and preparation of project documentation. The amendment was rejected by the mayor's coalition councilors. This is because the mayor and the Urban Greenery Board already had a different idea at the time - to create an underground parking lot at the site, and a park on its roof.
This conflicted with the provisions of the plan, so the implementation of such an investment would have required an amendment to the plan. What's more, the City was aware of the geological problems associated with water in the area and aware of the potential additional costs of the investment, which had already discouraged private investors. This, however, was not the end of the story. The idea chased an idea. Shortly thereafter, the city's vice mayor announced that the plot had been reserved for a subway study. Although a subway in Krakow is a science fiction idea, the city authorities were obliged by referendum to develop a study, and the plot, as one of the few of this size in the center, is still within their jurisdiction. The project to create a park was officially suspended.
residents took matters into their own hands
Things began to look bad. Natalia Nazim mobilized the community with the slogan "Let's submit a project to the Civic Budget!". The amount of two million zlotys that can be applied for in this procedure is far from sufficient in the context of the needs (a large part of it will be consumed by land reclamation), but it is enough to get the machine rolling.
Anna Dymna and Robert Makłowicz supporting the promotional campaign for the project in the Civic Budget
Photo: Lukasz Maślona
"We concluded that it's better to do this park in a base version than to stand still. We knew this was a last resort. If we leave things as they are, there will be more and more, equally controversial ideas for developing this plot of land." - Natalia Nazim says.
The idea for the park involves reconnecting the area with the library. At the moment, a fence divides the plots, and the library has planned to create a Green Reading Room on the narrow lawn on the side of the parking lot. The library director is open to participating in the project, but has set a condition - due to the library's security requirements, the park must be closed at night, which is not an obstacle. The activists' efforts led to an agreement between the Board of Urban Greening and the library to unify the green areas on the two plots.
In this way, "the library gains access to the park, but we also enlarge the green area thanks to this. The Green Reading Room will be a de facto park, and the park will be part of the Green Reading Room." - Nazim concludes.
The green belt belonging to the library, fenced off from the parking lot, for which the Green Reading Room project was created; after arrangements with the Board of Urban Greenery, the belt belonging to the library is to form one coherent whole together with the park
Photo: Katarzyna Jagodzinska
new meeting place
Thus, a new meeting place will be created in the heart of the Old Town, easily accessible from four sides - in addition to a natural connection with Karmelicka, Dolnych Młynów and Rajska Streets through the library's entrance hall, the fence on the side of today's dead-end Kochanowskiego Street will also disappear. Due to its neighborhood, the park would have a literary character and thus become part of the cultural district, which in addition to the library currently has three theaters and a museum. The visualization of the park was made socially by landscape architects Katarzyna Wysocka and Wojciech Kurek. It is a vision that is yet to be subjected to public consultation.
Visualization of the park on Karmelicka Street - view of the wall with a brick pergola and a wall with an opening on the side of the park - prepared by Wojciech Kurek and Katarzyna Wysocka in 2018.
© Wojciech Kurek, Katarzyna Wysocka
The project for the park on Karmelicka Street received twice as many points as the next citywide project on the list in the Civic Budget vote, which was decided in October.
This endorsement gives social legitimacy - "the possibility to put pressure on the City Hall to implement this project". - Natalia Nazim comments.
The deputy mayor of Krakow revealed that he himself voted for the project, so activists and residents are hoping that work will start as early as 2020.
residents bail out the city...
There is always distaste in the case of such projects implemented as part of the Civic Budget, because after all, the City should carry out such tasks on its own, from its own budget. Tidying up the city center and planting it with greenery for the benefit of residents is not a fad, just as repairing sidewalks is not (this is an allusion to the ongoing renovation of the sidewalk on Slowackiego Avenue, which won - also thanks to Natalia Nazim's involvement - in last year's Civic Budget). And green and infrastructure projects, largely related to building or repairing sidewalks, definitely dominate among those selected for implementation. This is what residents want, and their needs are still not sufficiently recognized in the city government's priorities.
