Bård Folke Fredriksen, Vice Mayor Urban Development, City of Oslo

Transcription

1 BUILDING FOR GROWTH Bård Folke Fredriksen, Vice Mayor Urban Development, City of Oslo Oslo s sea-front, before 2000 Welcome to the Oslo Metropolitan Area! Our region has a population of 2.3 million, of which 600,000 live in the core municipality. This is one of the fastest growing urban regions in Europe. Last year alone, our population grew by 38,000, and we expect an increase of more than half a million people over the next twenty years. Oslo started as a Viking settlement. Our forefathers built a small town in a safe harbour at the northern end of this beautiful fjord. (This was a good base for them, in between their well-known visits across Europe for trading and cultural exchange one thousand years ago.) Oslo developed as a small industrial capital during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Many ships were built in the city, as well as having a thriving textile, steel and other light industries. Our manufacturing industry has declined as in the rest of Europe. The Oslo region has succeeded through the last decades in building up strong service and knowledge-based sectors. We have most of the national companies and government headquarters, the national financial services, and 4 major industrial clusters that operate all stages in production across the country. On top of this, our modern service industries provide excellent retailing and cultural services for the region s population.

2 Despite falling job numbers in industry, I am therefore pleased to say that employment in the Oslo Metropolitan Area has stayed at a high level. This gives us a strong base as we drive forward new ways for future generations to succeed. A growing region is a developing region. Our region s vitality depends on the success of our companies in global markets. In our open and knowledge-based economy, centred on the Oslo Metropolitan Area, competitive companies seek environments of excellence and innovation. The vitality of our region is also dependent on our standard of living and quality of life. Oslo offers a diverse and interesting life, creating a feeling of belonging and identity for all those who live here. The Oslo region has a modern, green and forward looking city at its core. We have a good mix of high quality culture. We have formal and informal art-forms. And we are the winter-sport capital of the world. How can we transform this success into a greater urban regional strategy for the Oslo Metropolitan Area? Oslo is facing one of its most dramatic economic, cultural, and social transformations ever. An important way to ensure the quality of business, trade and public services is through open, dynamic and forward-thinking plans for the city and the region.

3 Oslo is being steadily transformed. We have seen major redevelopment-projects in some of our former industrial sites. I would like to give you a foretaste of some of our more exciting projects. Fjord-city plan Approved Filipstad Vippetangen Alnas utløp Priorities and actions urban redevelopment modern port Sydhavna Internet: The City has approved a major plan for redeveloping the harbour front. The new Fjord-City is emerging. Key buildings around the modern opera and gallery of modern art taking shape as we speak. This gallery of modern art will be opened in September this year, and was designed by Renzo Piano

4 Our modern opera opened in The opera building features an open and accessible marble roof, as well as world class performance facilities. This is the starting point for the city s largest single office and residential development. Barcode Opera quarter Ill.: Plan- og bygningsetaten/via Nova Source: Lund Hagem og Placebo Effects Known as the Barcode development, this will frame an extended public space along the waterfront. The Fjord-City is also located in the heart of Norway s transport network, with direct rail, metro, bus and tram services covering the whole region, and just 20 minutes on the airport-express to our national airport. (More accessible locations are of course available in central London, Paris or Brussels, but I think our Fjord-City might just be able to compete!) The Oslo Metropolitan Area is Europe s fastest growing capital region. At the same time we have stability - with low unemployment, broad democratic participation, and a robust market for both real estate and business investments.

5 Housing redevelopment in central Oslo We have plans for further densification and redevelopment of urban areas in the Oslo region over coming decades, including an expansion of central parts of the city. More than 200,000 new homes will be built for the growing population. Oslo has a varied supply of housing types. Traditional suburbian housing Here we can see some of the lower density, traditional, wooden housing, which contrasts with the more modern apartment blocks. We hope to keep this diversity, not all housing will be the same!

6 COMPLETED SHOWCASE PROJECTS AND BUILDINGS And here we have some new showcase projects from Oslo, which are designed to meet future environmental standards, with low or zero energy use. These so-called Future-Built projects were developed in collaboration between the City of Oslo and neighbouring Drammen together with private developers. They are good examples for developments that will have to happen at a larger scale. About 9,000 of the new homes are currently under construction as part of the Fjord- City, where up to 45,000 new jobs are also expected by about Other redevelopment projects have already taken shape such as Nydalen by the new Metro Ring. Compact urban development based on a new metro-ring NYDALEN transformation from Steel to Knowlegde & Culture

7 The City of Oslo is working with the Government to achieve long-term housing and business improvements in Oslo s eastern corridor. Romsås In the longer term, we expect a growth of up to jobs in the city as a whole. We have therefore focused on a broad strategy for land use and transportation in the wider Oslo Metropolitan Area. This is based on sustainable principles for regional development, with a compact city structure. Three models for long-term regional development Continue the historic development pattern Concentrated development in a few large towns Densification of transport nodes 8 A compact city structure means two things: firstly, a concentration of new real estate projects in the functionally integrated urban centres of the region

8 secondly, densification and urban development at the key transport nodes The Oslo Metropolitan Area growth points and infrastrutcture The Oslo Metropolitan Area can be shown as a three-pronged structure of growth: to the north-east through the transport business corridor towards the national airport Gardemoen and the high-tech research cluster at Kjeller to the west through the Drammen region and further north to the industrial cluster at Kongsberg and south to Torp Airport and the Grenland Harbour to the south, passing Rygge Airport, a modern industrial belt, where we are cooperating with Gothenburg and Copenhagen to push for a future highspeed train to the European continent. in the core city, new metro-lines, 4 universities and centres of higher education (UiO, UMB, BI, HIO/A), Science-park/ research centre and Cancercluster, maritime and energy clusters, and national centres for finance and culture. In case you still need to be convinced, there are also many other good reasons to choose Oslo! Our thriving arts and music environment, unique outdoor activities, strong housing market, high levels of education, and our safe and accessible core city are all elements that we are very proud of.

9 I look forward to sharing this, and more, with visitors and new residents, in the years ahead. As a conclusion, I must emphasize that we are planning to meet the anticipated increase in the number of people moving to the Oslo Metropolitan Area with a positive approach. We have accessible building-land and planning tools to enable major investments and development of housing and businesses and other exciting elements in the urban fabric. Our main task as political leaders is to enable the key players to come forward and realise their projects, to the benefit of the whole region. Fougners vei 10 A Building for growth is not only about building enough. It is also a question of quality and value.

10 I am delighted to introduce the next four speakers. These represent some of the key players who have already been involved in the development of Oslo s urban future. Thank you very much for listening, and I hope you enjoy the rest of the presentation from my colleagues from Oslo!