17. Niš, Serbia: Business Improvement District Strategic Vision
Niš is one of the oldest cities in the Balkans. It is Serbia’s second largest city, and the center of the Administrative District of Nišava. Situated at a crossroads, Niš connects the Balkans to Europe, and Europe to the Near East. Niš is a modern university center, and a city of more than 300,000 inhabitants. It is the center of southeastern Serbia — it’s natural, social, economic, educational, medical, cultural, and sports center.
The Problem
One of the problems in many Central European cities is the impact that economic development has had on life in the city center. While the urbanization process (people moving into cities) has continued ever since the industrial revolution, it has recently (since late 20th century) been followed by suburbanization (economic and residential activities moving outside the city centers), which creates slums and empties out the central parts of cities, once known as the vital parts of life in the community. The city of Niš has been no exception to this trend.
Solutions to this phenomenon were first sought in the United States, where some cities, including New York, pioneered some private-public partnership approaches commonly referred to as Business Improvement Districts. These are associations of private entrepreneurs and institutions located in a specific central zone of a city that work together to ensure capital improvements, security, cleaning, and maintenance of the street and organize promotional events and market the zone as a destination for tourists and citizens.
Niš participated in a USAID-financed project in 2002 that helped it establish its first Business Improvement District through a strategic planning process. There were several obstacles in organizing the effort and in involving the 90 business owners in the creation of the zone:
The 90 businesses in the area provided a broad variety of services. There are more than 10 restaurants and shoe or clothes shops, several bakeries, and other service providers and shops. Yet no one had ever tried to list the services and products available in the zone, and the businesses knew little about each other. There was no feeling of togetherness in the zone — the businesses operated independently and believed that they competed with each other rather than against other parts of the city/region.
There was little positive communication between City Hall and the businesses. The businesses felt that City Hall was there only to collect taxes and restrict operations. City Hall felt the businesses were simply trying to avoid paying taxes and complain about quality of services in the zone.
The purchasing power of people who sought services in the zone was low. The only way to increase the volume of business was to increase its appeal to larger community and create a distinctive image that would make more people to come to the zone to spend there more time and money.
The Solution
Any effort to bring business representatives together with City Hall to work on improving the zone’s image and the volume of business generated there would depend on the two sides’ motivations to invest the time and energy into such an exercise. Therefore it was necessary to establish a strategic vision for the zone, something that would motivate everyone and align their interests with the effort, and a mission statement for the strategic development commission that would carry out these activities, so that everyone would be clear on how it was to be carried out.
The strategic vision was drafted by a strategic vision subcommittee and shared with the rest of the zone:
| The Niš Business Improvement District (BID) is a brand-name, unique combination of historical tradition (genius loci) with modern dynamic place offering a variety of goods and services, promotional events, and cultural activities. It is a place where everybody feels relaxed, safe, pleasant, and likes to return frequently. |
This strategic vision is a shared future description of the zone. The fact that it is stated in the present time but talks about the future motivates the business residents to seek ways how to achieve it. For this, the mission statement for the newly created Business Association is instrumental:
The Niš BID Association will identify and agree on programs and activities in support of the Niš central shopping district development and create a permanent BID organization that will implement them. The Niš BID Association will achieve its mission based on the principles of professional approach, transparency, openness to new ideas, code (ethics) of behavior, and partnership with the city and other local government institutions.
This mission statement identifies clearly the more immediate objective for the association as well as the guiding principles of work that fight the traditional approaches and stereotypes and establish the basis for mutually convenient and ethical cooperation of the private and public sectors.
Today, the BID Niška Varoš has been established and it has an operating office and a dedicated manager. It has implemented capital improvements worth some $150,000, and it organizes cultural and other public activities in the zone. The businesses meet regularly as a group and understand that they are competition with other shopping districts and malls and that they are not in competition with the city hall and that public enterprises are not their enemies.
The strategic vision and mission statements are not just pieces of text that introduce the intentions of the strategic planners. They reinforce the very basic ideas of economic development strategic planning on those who become part of the planning process and just by influencing the drafting of them the participants become more involved and integrated with their city or zone (in this case study).
Contact information
“Mukacheve: We Have Been Revitalizing Tourism together”
Bulletin Partners, # 12 (58), December
A reader imparts his experience
Mukacheve: We Have Been Revitalizing Tourism Together
The Mukacheve City Council has recognized that the tourist and recreation industries are of prime importance to the growth of the local economy. It has established that the key condition for the development of tourism is close cooperation between the City Council, businesses, civic institutions, and the general public.
The partnership began with rehabilitation of the city center. A comprehensive architectural and artistic design was developed for Mukacheve. The plan’s chief goal was to preserve the town’s architectural heritage. Local construction firms started the reconstruction, with funding from the city’s budget and investments by local shop owners, hotels, and NGOs.
A fresh impetus to the development of tourism was given by the Program for the Development of Tourism and Recreation Industries in the City of Mukacheve in 2003-2010, adopted by the Mukacheve City Council in January 2003. This long-term program focused on activities to make the city one of the major tourist centers in Zakarpattia Oblast. The Mukacheve City Council, jointly with the Directorate of Palanok Castle, began to canvas Ukrainian and international investors actively to finance the new development.
With this objective in mind, a set of documents was prepared to allow the leasing of part of Palanok Castle. The documents were examined by the Zakarpattia Oblast State Administration’s Office of Architecture and the “Ukrzakhidproektrestavratsiya” Institute in Lviv and have been submitted for approval to the Ukraine’s National Agency for Preservation of Cultural Monuments.
The city’s tourism development program has developed an extensive publicity and information campaign. In 2003, more than UAH 30,000 was spent on this marketing campaign. A series of booklets (“Palanok Castle,” “Zakarpattia’s Wooden Churches,” and “Palanok Castle’s Picture Gallery”) and two tourist maps of the city were produced.
Active assistance in the revival of the castle has been provided by the recently formed non-government organization “The Friends of Palanok Castle.” It has already held an international conference on the castle’s historical significance in the history of the countries of Carpathian region and the development of tourism at the castle. A Web page devoted to the castle(www.zamokpalanok.mk.uz.ua) has been launched. The organization’s future plans include holding of a knights’ tournament at the castle and seeking financial assistance for the renovation of the castle from non-government foundations and businesses.
In the 2003, in the Mukacheve city budget, UAH 20,000 was allocated for the staging of local and international folklore and arts events. Private individuals donated much more to support these activities.
According to Mukacheve Historical Museum Director Vasyl Tsyhak, the number of visitors has been growing annually. In 1996, the museum earned less than UAH 1,000 from selling entrance tickets; in 2003, it earned UAH 72,000; in 2004, UAH 124,500; and in the first nine months of 2005, close to UAH 150,000.
Volodymyr Homeniuk
Deputy Mukacheve City Council Secretary, Chairman NGO “Friends of Palanok Castle”
Phone /Fax: (03131) 2-33-01
