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Recently, amateur arts organisation De Federatie wrote an interesting analysis on the Flemish coalition agreement’s focus on cultural and community infrastructure. The Ministers of Culture and Youth have plans: both policy papers speak explicitly about investments in cultural and youth infrastructure. That this is desperately needed, we at IDEA Consult have also been able to establish in recent years during various studies, including on the cultural infrastructure in Ghent, the stage infrastructure in Antwerp and the need for space for culture for OP/TIL, the support and knowledge centre for supra-local cultural activities.

These studies provided some interesting insights.

1. Associations often rely entirely on volunteers, with a very limited budget. If cultural and youth organisations are subsidised it is to build a content operation and often not (enough) to manage infrastructure.

In recent decades, we saw a combination of sharply rising living costs and subsidies that did not follow this evolution, combined with the rather limited space and possibilities to generate own income as a non-profit organisation. Due to limited financial breathing space, the commercial rental market is usually not an option for these organisations. Artists, young people and organisations do not always need physical space in prime condition and are happy to compromise to find something affordable, but this, too, is becoming increasingly difficult: large cities in particular hardly have any affordable ‘residual space’ left that has not been commercially developed. At the same time, organisations and associations often have limited resources and knowledge to maintain the infrastructure at their disposal. Expectations towards them are also not always made explicit by public and private owners at the start of the agreement, and not every organisation is equally aware of its responsibilities as a ‘good caretaker’.

• Cultural and youth organisations can often occupy infrastructure owned by a government, which assumes ownership and sometimes tenant or user maintenance. However, governments are also tight on funds and have a sizeable patrimony to manage.

For lack of money, governments postpone necessary maintenance and replacement tasks, or even abandon them altogether. Patrimony usually also includes immovable heritage, which almost always carries a higher maintenance cost. Because of its social importance, its spatial characteristics and because ‘the market’ is not always eager to restore and exploit heritage, precisely this cost-intensive heritage is often made available for social functions such as culture and youth. So this poses a double financial challenge, but one to which governments must find an answer anyway: after all, in addition to ‘the content’ (culture and youth), ‘the place’ (in particular heritage care) is also a shared social responsibility, and often it is the (local) governments that take on both.

• Governments like to build new infrastructure (physical and digital), but too little consideration is given to long-term costs.

In the past, construction was not always done in a future-oriented and sustainable manner. When maintenance and replacement costs start rising after a few years, it is already another legislature, and then it often becomes someone else’s problem. Older government infrastructure is often energetically disastrous and sometimes neglected and/or underused. For local associations, the systematic ageing and simultaneous disappearance of municipal infrastructure and former parish halls and houses is a tragedy: often there is no affordable alternative available to them. The fascinating study City Building 2.0 formulates an alternative approach to build future-oriented government infrastructure. In parallel to building or renovating, however, a vision is also needed of the use and management costs of the existing patrimony, and in particular the heritage sites owned and managed by the (local) government. On top of the infrastructure and maintenance cost, it is not always recognised that every ambitious public-oriented building requires a exploitation that is equally ambitious, and thus requires a (higher) subsidised operating cost – and vice versa. So it is not surprising that both Flemish and local governments are overwhelmed with ‘growth questions’ from – among others – the cultural sector.

• There is a lack of knowledge among both cultural and youth organisations and governments about the real long-term cost of infrastructure. Poor maintenance leads to higher long term infrastructure costs.

A concept like ‘total cost of ownership’, in which not only (re)construction costs but also maintenance, replacement and energy costs are taken into account, is not widely enough known among both governments and organisations in Flanders. A vision and (re)investment plan for the patrimony is essential to foresee and anticipate increasing costs. Moreover, we find that there is a gap between the Flemish structural funding and the maintenance costs for the infrastructure; this gap is often filled by the local government, but sometimes no single party (cultural or youth organisation, local government, Flanders) has a good view of the totality and coherence between the two. An infrastructure in poor condition can also negatively affect the cultural exploitation, which can put pressure on achieving cultural ambitions.

• Everyone of course realises that there’s no such thing as a free lunch. Because of the high costs of infrastructure, Flemish organisations and governments, among others, are working on new ways for sharing space.

Our research showed that the ambition to share space is widespread, but that there are certainly still opportunities for optimisation. In doing so, we detected 3 major stumbling blocks.

1. Operational management of shared space. Even with the first pilot projects on ‘Brede School’, many years ago, it became clear that while schools were generally willing to share their space with cultural and youth organisations, they often struggled to made this work. Today, the same ideas can be found in the brand new BOA decree, focusing on after school activities. The challenges have not changed, though, and these also apply to infrastructure other than schools: there is a challenge in terms of competences and in terms of capacity to take on this task. Some of the questions that need to be answered: what does it take to open up an infrastructure to multiple users? What do these users need in terms of space, time and facilities? What is the cost of shared building management? What is the role of the co-owners and/or co-users? Who pays what, and can you do something in return in kind, e.g. by taking on extra maintenance tasks? How do you settle maintenance and energy? What do you do when things get broken and need to be fixed? Is the infrastructure also accessible outside usual opening hours? How can users reserve a space, whether for temporary, recurring or long-term use? Are there users that need to be prioritised? How do you arrange security and access management and work with keys, access codes and/or badges? And who develops, manages and maintains them? These very practical issues should be addressed early on in the exploration phase, as it is mainly because of these challenges that space sharing doesn’t work as intended
2. Spatial characteristics in relation to intended use. A second challenge is how concrete needs of users are answered by spatial characteristics and facilities present. In the research into stage infrastructure in Antwerp, for example, this concerned the need for a flat floor or a stage, the dimensions of the stage, fixed or mobile stands, the techniques present and how they can be used, loading and unloading facilities, the presence or absence of daylight, the question of whether equipment can last for a while,… If you combine such questions with other types of use and disciplines, this can become quite a complex puzzle. The classic ‘multipurpose space’, which is designed a bit for everyone – but not really fit for anything, is not a good answer to this. Can we develop new spatial typologies that are based on real user needs and better take these into account, while also thinking forward about flexible usage?
3. Finding the right partners. Organisations of the same type often have overlapping needs. This can make shared space use easier but also more difficult: for example, there may be overlap in terms of spatial needs such as a stage, but unfortunately the times when organisations want to use the infrastructure often overlap as well. It may therefore be interesting to combine different types of use while also breaking down sectoral barriers. Why could one cleverly designed infrastructure not simultaneously be a place for different functions, such as culture, youth work, education, care, …? However, integral thinking about shared use of space currently clashes with separate streams of thinking and funding, both at Flemish and local level, and the impact of the operational question of day-to-day management is not always properly recognised.

In short, these are key concerns for ministers if they want to achieve an integrated infrastructure policy.

Not only between culture and youth, but also with other policy areas such as education, healthcare, economy, tourism, …. How can support for shared use be improved to keep public infrastructure costs manageable for society

This way of thinking is obviously not new; the ‘Vlaamse Bouwmeester’, among others, has been emphasizing on this for a long time. However, the insights must find concrete solutions both at the level of building projects and at the level of management. The Ambrassade has produced an interesting guide on space sharing. OP/TIL is also paying attention to this in their initiatives on cultural spaces of tomorrow: they are trying to set up learning networks, to exchange knowledge and experiences on shared use – and this across the borders of sectors and municipalities. Incidentally, colleague Joris Janssens wrote an article for them on the specific role of intermunicipal partnerships: today, they usually do not own or manage community infrastructure, but they can make a contribution from their directing role, among other things connecting various sectors, users and authorities.

Do you have questions around (cultural) infrastructure and/or shared space use? Contact me.