Nieuwegein (NL)

About the city

The city Nieuwegein  has a strong urban character with various shopping areas and business districts, but at the same time calm and quiet residential areas with lots of greenery. Public space in Nieuwegein must be inviting for everyone to go outside and play and exercise. We think green spaces can facilitate this. Increase of the perception of nature within the living environment is there for an important theme for the city of Nieuwegein. This is one of the reasons why we are looking forward to learn, cocreate and contribute to the research project MultiGreen. 

The overall ambition of Nieuwegein is that all urban development conduces to the following goals:

A.    Increase quality of the built environment
B.    Increase sustainability
C.    Ensuring the safety of residents
D.    Healthy urban living for everyone

Green spaces and water are abundant in Nieuwegein and largely determine the appearance and identity of the city. Green spaces and water do not only increase the quality of the built environment, but also facilitate healthy urban living and counter the consequences of climate change. We take advantage of the opportunity that new developments bring, to accomplish completion of the ecological structure of the city and to take measures for climate adaptation. Examples of climate adaptation measures in new developments are: a circular wastewater system in the city centre, green roofs and facades on buildings and requirements about storage volumes of rainwater for buildings. 

We take the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) as a framework for these earlier mentioned urban developments. The SDG’s helps us to clarify our goals towards developers, investors and other initiators who are accustomed to the SDG’s vocabulary. For the development plans for the city centre of Nieuwegein we use the following SDG’s:

 
   
Nieuwegein will contribute to the CAS-NWO MultiGreen Project by providing best practises and lessons learned for the climate adaptation projects in the city. By implementing the GI planning and evaluation tool Multigreen within our projects, we will provide valuable real-world testing and feedback.
 

have high sustanability standards for our new residential and commercial buildings. This is one of the big steps forward to be climate-proof by 2050. Meaning that the city is resistant again extreme heats, draughts, precipitations and other effects of climate change. 

Moreover Nieuwegein want to be an city with plenty of vegetation and water. This makes the city more beautiful, but also creates a healthier environment to live in. Additionally, this vegetation and water can dampen the effects of climate-change. This requires our city to be tidy, safe and health. Only this path leads to a happy and health future of our city.