Community Planning and Development Services:

Urbecon provides community development services worldwide, transferring knowledge, experience and best practices amongst clients across continents.  We partner with governments, international development agencies, local and international NGOs, professional associations and universities to address challenges of government reform, sustainable community development and energy efficiency.  Drawing on extensive local and international program and management experience, Urbecon designs programs in consort with stakeholders to both build capacity and sustainability.  Urbecon provides needs assessments, participatory strategic processes, implementation and evaluation plans.

Selected Projects:

  Local Government Housing Strategies

Urbecon Sp. Zoo worked with local governments in Poland to assess their housing stock, housing needs of their population, effective demand for housing and to create strategic plans for meeting housing needs.

Gorzow Wielkapolska Population : 125,411

Gorzow Wielkapolska Population : 125,411

We organized teams of local professionals: planners, housing experts and appraisers and worked with them to develop a strategic process to engage the local elected bodies and government agencies.  Their active participation in the assessment process was a transforming experience that enabled debate and discussion based on shared information.  The team facilitated a strategic priority setting process and creation of implementation plans. These strategic processes and plans for large, mid-sized and small municipalities served as prototypes for local governments around the country.

Creating Not for Profit Housing Organizations

Poland relied on government funded or personally funded housing development by individuals or groups.  To engage private capital, the World Bank financed a mortgage fund that provided dual indexed mortgages and contract savings programs to deal with inflation issues.  TBS, non-profit housing developers, were organized and trained in market -based housing development and financing. Urbecon developed the business planning model and process to assist in the creation of 50 housing organizations that developed and/or rehabilitated over 5,000 units of housing across Poland.