Organizational set-up desealing and rewilding brigade
To encourage the people of Ghent to remove paving from their own private land, a desealing and rewilding brigade has been set up. The Courtyard Crushers are fully committed to making the process as hassle-free as possible and support residents with advice and assistance.
As much as 75% of the paved surface area in Ghent is privately owned. This means there is considerable potential for further desealing of the city. To help residents with this task, a desealing and rewilding brigade has been set up. It has been named Courtyard Crushers.
The Courtyard Crushers are a values-driven organization with one clear goal: to remove as much paving as possible from small urban gardens and courtyards on private land. And yet they are more than that. Through desealing, they aim to foster connections and create a community - a network of people and organizations united behind a common goal: making the city more liveable by removing hard surfaces, increasing biodiversity and combating the heat island effect.
This report consists of three parts:
- The building blocks of the Courtyard Crushers: on the basis of which insights from research and experimentation has the Courtyard Crushers’ operation been structured? Who are the main target groups and how do they reach them? What are the core tasks and who are the main partners?
- The practical and financial organization of the Courtyard Crushers and a description of a number of experiments designed to further refine these aspects. Themes explored in the experiments: cost, referral, types of projects and approach.
- How is the Rewild the City budget being used for all of this?
Important: this report is the result of the initial experiences within Rewild the City. It is a snapshot. Insights gained as the project progresses will certainly continue to influence the structure of the Courtyard Crushers.