Renovating the community: The public value of improving private housing in Egaleo

It is an unexpectedly warm December morning in Egaleo, in Northwest Athens. We meet at the Egaleo metro station, arguably the centre of the town for the thousands of people who commute daily to central Athens or other cities in the agglomeration. Holding on to our coffee cups as we wait for the rest of the group, we quietly let the sunshine coddle our bodies before we return to winter at home. 

I’m with an international group of municipal officers, all working in the housing and social services departments of their cities and we’re visiting some of the condominium buildings or Polykatoikias that lie at the centre of Egaleo’s European Urban Initiative-funded project, Rock the Block. The project, in order to address the problems of Egaleo’s aging building stock, unsatisfied housing needs and weak community bonds, envisions to mobilise a combination of technical interventions, community networks and institution building. 

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We take a walk across Egaleo’s central commercial area, crossing streets busy with coffee shops, restaurants, bakeries, barber shops and beauty parlors, attracting passers-by from the neighbourhood and beyond. The magnolias and bitter orange trees lining the sidewalks hide a succession of two, three or sometimes four-storey buildings. When we stop in front of one of these buildings, nothing really distinguishes it from others, if not the well-decorated storefront at the building’s ground floor. We’re let in the main door by our host, one of the building’s residents, we take the elevator to the second floor and walk up the stairs to the building’s rooftop. As I set my foot on the roof, I suddenly feel the streets disappearing underneath and all that encircles us is rooftops with antennae, air conditioners and solar thermal collectors fixed on them. 

Our position allows us to observe the surrounding landscape: detached from the hustle and bustle of the street, we’re at a layer of the city that is mostly used to serve the buildings’ logistics and engineering. As most roofs are shared property of the apartments making up the condominium buildings and this often makes them no man's land: only a few pieces of furniture scattered around the roofs bear witness to any social activity taking place at this height. Every now and then, the white-grey pattern of buildings and roofs is interrupted by the green of trees, bushes and lawns: mostly shared but underused gardens that do not fulfill their potential in a city particularly exposed to climate change. 

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Much of this could be different, suggests Stella Daouti of the architecture studio AREA, who shows us around the rooftop. The roofs of these buildings could be used to produce energy, potentially alleviating the energy poverty widespread in Egaleo and allowing residents to organise themselves into energy communities or other forms of energy solidarity. The shared green areas could be cultivated together not only to bring fruits but also to act as climate gardens, retaining water and cooling the air to counter the heat islands produced in Egaleo’s densely constructed, concrete-dominated landscape. All these activities could create structures of cooperation among residents, helping them in connecting with and relying on each other, leading to more cohesive and more resilient local communities. 

Our host confirms this vision: the reason why we are here is that this building is one of the 40 condominium buildings that applied for funding within Rock the Block. The open call by the Egaleo Municipality, inviting Polykatoikias to apply for funding for improvements in their condominium buildings, was launched in October.  The criteria and conditions to select the 8-10 buildings that will be supported with a total of €1 million were re-defined following a consultation process including a series of public events and expert input. 

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“It is an open, collaborative process,” explains Stefania Gyftopoulou when we sit down later at the Rock the Block headquarters. The process began with four different meetings to present the call. The municipality carefully selected the four locations (two schools, a museum and an entrepreneurship centre) in order to reach a diversity of people and better understand the needs and concerns of different communities living within the municipal territory. 

Being face-to-face with residents, at four different occasions, allowed public officers to clarify the main vision of the project. “My sense was that most people originally came to the events to talk about technical issues, their problems with doors, windows and heating systems,” remembers Stefania. “When we mentioned examples such as places for children to play or neighbours to cook together, they suddenly recognised themselves in these: they already had this culture of sharing spaces.” 

One of the goals of the public events was to spread the word about the call, in order to inspire more people and buildings to apply. Besides the meetings, however, local and national media played a key role. “Just a few days before the deadline, the national TV picked up our story,” recalls Stefania. “After Rock the Block was featured on TV, the phone kept ringing all the time and we considered extending the deadline.” 

The public meetings were also used to discuss the selection criteria that buildings would need to meet in order to access funding for renovations and other improvements. This was a complex task as the programme needed to be attractive for private owners while producing public value for the city of Egaleo. Rock the Block partners came up with a series of preliminary conditions to enter the call, including an agreement by the majority of owners in the buildings, participation in the process of co-designing and co-implementation, joining the municipality’s biowaste management programme and accommodating at least three types of interventions (energy, green, inclusive, circular).

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In order to increase the impact of the interventions, property owners had to commit to maintain them for at least five years and, most importantly, they had to agree on leasing their apartments for a specified period at an affordable rate, in exchange for the improvements received through the public funds. This was originally perceived as potentially controversial. “Initially, the city was very much afraid of adding the aspects of keeping rents stable for five years or if you have an empty apartment, you need to rent it at an affordable rate, not being able to rent it in Airbnb or sell it for five years. They thought that this would deter residents from applying as if it's something too much to ask in return,” explains Stefania. “But we saw the opposite. So when these issues were discussed in the four meetings, people said that they think that it makes sense since the project will fund the upgrading of their buildings, they have to give something back in return to the city. This was an important lesson because it's the first time that in Greece something like that related to housing is asked from people.” 

After collecting impressions from residents at the four public meetings taking place in June, the municipality uploaded the participation criteria on the project website for a month for feedback, before consolidating and finalising them. Once the criteria were finalised and the call was out, the municipality continued to offer help to applicants: “People were coming here to get support for their applications. So we provided more practical help related to what kind of documents they need to find, and how to submit the application,” recalls Stefania. Providing such a service allowed the municipality to test the modalities of Egaleo’s future Housing Office, established as part of Rock the Block, designed to give information and support to residents about funding opportunities, energy efficiency measures, renovations or related neighbourhood initiatives. 

The call closed on 31 October and the municipality received 40 applications, from various parts of the city and representing a diversity of building types and social compositions. As I walk back to the metro station, I take another look at some of the buildings I visited earlier in the day. I try to imagine these buildings with new rooftop installations and more weather-proof insulation, with a collaboratively managed garden, an adjacent vacant lot put back in use, some internal spaces used for gatherings and community events. 

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Many of these interventions, to be implemented in the coming years, will be invisible from the street. Will we still feel their repercussions outside the walls of the affected buildings? How would these changes impact the city of Egaleo? How can they inspire other households to change the ways they live together and use their buildings? I recall discussions with the Rock the Block team about impact: is it better to concentrate interventions in a specific area to maximise their influence or to disperse them to test ideas within different geographical, architectural and socio-economic circumstances? Is it more efficient to focus on buildings that need more structural investment or distribute resources between more houses for a more horizontal impact? While it will take years to understand the impact of these interventions, the selection process in Rock the Block urges us to interrogate the nature of public subsidies and how they affect green transition and social cohesion in our cities.