Press release from Vestbredden Dec 7th 2015

Have we gotten a new city council in Oslo?

In the living- and workingcollective Vestbredden Vel Vel we don’t notice any difference. On the contrary, the disappoinment of Arbeiderpartiet (the labour party) and Miljøpartiet De Grønne (the green party) has no end. Our user-driven, cityecological collective was with big and gentle words promised a dialogue about a municipal leasing contract if there was to be a change in the city council.

For a fleeting moment it actually seemed like there was action behind those words. The new city council for city development Hanna Elise Marcussen (MDG/green party) withdrew, immediately after the election, the sale of Hauskvartalet (the Haus neighborhood) back for reassessment. We were told that the councillor had the power to stop the sale and we pictured a long awaited dialogue about the future of the neighborhood, where the intentions of the regulationplan from 2008 finally would be taken seriously!

Dec 3rd it was publically announced that the sale would not be stopped after all. Roumors say that the main reason for continuing the sale is that the municipal laywer concludes with it being a juridical impossibility to stop the sale. But in the media, councillor Hanna Elise Marcussen expresses that the reason is another: a cancelation of the sale might slow down the prossess of getting the necessary rehabilitation of the properties done, and that this will cost Oslo city council too much money. There is also an outspoken municipal fear of claims from Urbanium in the event of cancelling the sale.

Why such a rush after 16 years of public disclaiming?

These contradictory details needs to have an explanation. If it’s a juridical impossibility to cancel the sale, this has to be explained and justified! It is known that the city council, in the end, are voting over this case, and there is absolutely nothing wrong with the councillor proposing a  motion recommending cancellation of the sale, if it was for vague juridical excuses or not.  This kind of proposal would match up with what one so gracefully promised before the election. One chooses instead to follow in the already trodden trail of the former Høyre (right wing) city council. Apparently a lot happens on the road from opposition to actual power position.

The city council bases its opinion on the same figures and calculation methods from 2009 where the sales-process became initiated, without taking the actual circumstances into account. The prevailing parties at city hall was handed detailed documentation on renovating and active user participation from Vestbredden before the election, and know that the numbers they operate with are fictional and without substance. The way the city council in this case plays the parts in Hauskvartalet up against eachother is utterly distasteful. The matter is thay plan to pump the sales-sum into Hausmania for renovation. That the new city council uses split and conquer methods in line with the former council is considered a major provocation.

Hauskvartalet has never been stronger or more united than now, and the way this matter is being handled can only be seen as a significant escalation of an otherwise unnecessary conflict. There is a prepared plan for Hauskvartalet which takes a basis in continiued municipal ownership and which, beyond fulfilling the decided regulation plan, won’t cost Oslo city council much more than an ecological krone-is (a timeless norwegian ice cream).

This projectplan was after prelonged work ready for delivery the day before the sale was decided to be resumed, and therefore not taken into account at all. There has not at any time been any visible intrest from the new city council to neither hear the views of the neighboorhood’s users, nor to familiarize themselves with the concrete and constructive proposals to solutions which have been submitted. If one only had entered into the dialogue which was promised before the election, this would have come up, but instead we are gravely overlooked and the will to real positive change in the capital looks more and more like a shabby aircastle. Urban ecology is about more than voluptuous formulations and advertizing-financed city bicycles.

The surreal part is that Vestbredden Vel Vel now places worse politically than before the election, where the now prevailing parties support our battle against privatisation of the neighborhood! Especially taking into concideration that most of the residents in the collective supported the prevailing democratic game rules and by their vote gave the people behind the big words the power in “the worlds fastest growing capital”.

Disappointed and pissed, but we’ll never fucking give up!

Painfully from Vestbredden Vel Vel