- The ‘VLCParticipa’ initiative will distribute its budget among the 19 districts of the city, with an initial allocation of 160,000 euros for each
- Councilor Julia Climent presents the new format of this participatory process that «simplifies the procedure, with a simpler website, informative campaigns to encourage participation, and in-person voting»
- The process, which can be followed on the website valencia.es, starts on Tuesday, April 29, and unfolds in four phases, with the last one allowing for a vote against «which will help detect possible social rejections before implementing a project»
The neighborhood of the city has 16 million euros from the Municipal Budget to turn their investment ideas into reality and participate in the construction and transformation of Valencia. This is the biannual allocation that the City Council has reserved for the development of the new format of participatory budgets. The process is now called ‘VLCParticipa’ «and aims to involve the citizens much more, with a simpler website, informative campaigns to encourage participation, and in-person voting».
Councilor of Human Resources and Technicians, Participation and Neighborhood and Pedanías Action, Julia Climent, has presented today this initiative that can be followed on the website vlcparticipa.valencia.es and will be developed, starting next Tuesday, April 29, in four phases. Lastly, as a novelty, a vote against will be enabled «which will help detect possible social rejections before executing a project».
«We are trying to give a new boost to participatory budgets to reach more people and for this, we introduce important innovations aimed at advancing citizen participation, and necessary changes and well thought out for a long time to go much further in the involvement of citizens in deciding the destination of municipal investments,» said the councilor, after indicating that «to introduce the changes, other successful models in Spanish or Portuguese cities like Cascais have been analyzed».
«From now on, we talk about ‘VLCParticipa’. But, it is not just a name change, we have completely redesigned the image of the participatory process because we bet on a creative, modern, unique, and colorful concept so that every person, wherever they live, feels reflected, involved, and a protagonist. Let them feel that this project also speaks of them, their neighborhood, and their people,» highlighted the councilor.
In this context, the City Council will launch in the coming days «an inclusive campaign, with messages that resonate with all social groups, with a close, direct, and accessible language. A campaign to reach more and better people». «And our main goal with this edition is clear: We want to ensure that Participatory Budgets reach all neighborhoods and districts of Valencia,» she reiterated.
Process Innovations
Julia Climent has indicated that to achieve this goal, the City Council has introduced innovations: «The procedure for submitting proposals by citizens has been simplified, directly through the new VLC Participa website, without the need for prior registration to participate, as those who wish to participate only need to enter data on registration and age, «and in this way, a difficulty of previous editions is corrected».
‘VLCParticipa’ also has a new design for the municipal website, «simpler, transparent, and intuitive, so that its use is easier and smoother, improving accessibility to the information necessary for the submission of proposals and their monitoring».
On the other hand, informative campaigns are reinforced, especially in those neighborhoods that have proposed fewer investment projects in previous editions, «with a specific dissemination strategy, both digital and in-person, to reach a broader and more diverse audience in these neighborhoods». «In addition, technical assistance will be provided to individuals or entities that request it to help them participate in any of the phases of the process,» added Climent.
Also, the initiative brings back in-person voting, «which existed in the early editions and facilitated the participation of some people, especially the elderly», in addition to telematic voting, with designated places during the voting period, which will be fully informed when the voting dates are published, starting in September.
«The timelines will also be shortened,» continued the councilor, who assured that all the innovations «are aimed at facilitating, encouraging, and motivating citizen participation, expanding information and dissemination, simplifying the process, facilitating voting, and, above all, executing the approved proposals more quickly, in order to provide an effective response to the expectations of those participating in the process».
Four Phases
Regarding the time process, which starts on Tuesday, it will consist of four «well-defined phases, designed to facilitate participation at each moment». The first phase, of collecting proposals, will take place from April 29 to May 31. During this period, citizens will present ideas to improve their neighborhoods and meet their needs. Anyone over the age of majority can participate, as well as registered entities and groups. And each investment project proposal must receive the support of 100 people to be studied by municipal technical services.
In the second phase, the support phase, will take place between June 1 and June 22. Each person can support up to 5 projects presented by both citizens and the City of Valencia.
During the third phase, the internal validation phase, scheduled between June 23 and September, the City Council will study the technical and economic viability of the most supported proposals. «For example, the cost will be analyzed, so that it does not exceed the allocation destined for the district, that the project is a municipal competence and does not conflict with other interventions, that it complies with current regulations, and that it is sustainable over time,» clarified the councilor.
The viable proposals that have received more than 200 supports in the 2nd phase will move on to citizen voting. The most voted projects in this phase will be executed until the planned budget is exhausted. Finally, in the last phase, starting in September, all of Valencia will vote on the finalist proposals. And the most voted ones will be executed.
At this point, Julia Climent highlighted an «important novelty» which is the vote against, «which exists and works in other major cities». «Until now, citizens could only vote for the proposals they wanted to be carried out. But this year, for the first time, they can also express rejection of specific proposals, and this new approach adds more nuances to the process, allows for the detection of possible social rejections before executing projects, and enriches participatory democracy with more decision options,» she explained.
Finally, Julia Climent emphasized that with this process «the City Council demonstrates its commitment to citizen participation that is intended to be real, transformative, and have an impact on the everyday life of people».
According to the terms of the call, for the calculation of the budget distribution of investment proposals by districts and neighborhoods, the Statistics Office of the València City Council has calculated an initial allocation of €160,000 per district. In addition, districts 17, 18, and 19 have been assigned an amount that is at least equal to what they received in the previous edition of participatory budgets, as they were the only ones that saw a reduction in their distribution based on the new allocation. This represents a total initial allocation of €4,522,569. The rest of the budget to be allocated (€11,477,431) has been distributed equitably based on criteria of proportionality of registered population aged 16 or older and inversely proportional to the average income of the district.
«We want a city built by everyone, because the València we want can only be built together with the people who live in it.» For this reason, the City Council has contacted entities, neighborhood associations, schools, and institutes to propose interesting ideas and has begun to distribute the so-called «participation box» that includes information about the entire process.
Regarding previous editions, the councilor recalled that «the current government found 259 projects not executed,» and assured that «only 100 remain pending, the rest are either executed or in the bidding process.» «We have made progress in the number of pending projects, others were unfeasible for various reasons such as the installation of toilets on beaches, as it is a responsibility of the Coastal Authority,» she concluded.