Opengela at the Committee of the Regions for its final conference

After three and a half years, the Opengela project concludes with its main objective fulfilled: to establish a new model of urban regeneration that is already being applied in 10 neighbourhoods in the Basque Country and which plans to be extended to another 14.

In the conference titled ‘The power of One-Stop-Shops’ on the 17th of November 2022, the Horizon 2020 project presented its main conclusions from the overall functioning of the model to the day-to-day work in the neighbourhoods. The conference was part of the Renovation Summit organised by European Association for Social Housing, Housing Europe. Participants were welcomed at the Committee of the Regions by the delegate of the Basque Government in Brussels, Marta Marín. The director of Territorial Planning and Urban Agenda, Ignacio de la Puerta, who leads the project consortium, accompanied by Txari Vallejo (Bilbao Municipal Housing) and Esther Zarrabeitia (Debegesa) explained in detail the development of the model and the two pilot projects in respectively Otxarkoaga (Bilbao) and Txonta (Eibar) neighbourhoods.

The event also featured 3 more good practices from Europe, AGREE (a project also led by the Basque Government), ComAct (an urban regeneration project implemented in several Eastern European countries) and Renowatt (a project implemented in the Belgian region of Wallonia). The last part of the conference allowed for a panel discussion with Julien Dijol (Housing Europe), Ignacio de la Puerta and Amélie Ancelle (from Energy-Cities, the European grouping of cities for sustainable energy).

Presentations

• Opengela – Safe and affordable home renovation: Upgrading buildings. Improving lives. – Ignacio de la Puerta, Basque Government: Department of Territorial Planning and Urban Agenda
• Opengela – Otxarkoaga neighbourhood Final results – Txari Vallejo, VVMM
• Opengela – Txonta neighbourhood (Eibar) Final results – Esther Zarrabeitia, Debegesa
• ComAct – Community Tailored Actions for Energy Poverty Mitigation – Margaux Barret, BPIE
• AGREE – Aggregation and improved Governance for untapping Residential Energy Efficiency potential in the Basque Country – Olatz Nicolas, Tecnalia
• RenoWatt – Energy retrofit for public buildings – Salma Lasri and Mohamed Amer, RenoWatt
• EnergyCities – Human Capacity in Local Governments: the key to roll out renovation programmes – Amélie Ancelle, Energy Cities

Watch the recording

You can watch the recording of the whole day below. If you wish only to watch the Power of One-Stop-Shop, go directly to the time code: 14:22:35.