WE WILLEMSTAD -Urban resilience in the Caribbean through collaboration & the adaptability of real estate

Abstract

The increase in economic, social, and environmental challenges leads to rethinking the long-term spatial vulnerabilities of small island developing states (SIDS). In addition, the lack of resources and low capacity available accentuates the necessity of considering urban resilience. By exploring the possible relationship between adaptive reuse and collaborative strategies to stimulate the redevelopment of urban environments. In many cases, urban renewal is achieved through current market trends and outdated planning policies. Thus, either neglecting or underusing the existing urban fabric and old building stock. The research focuses on complex urban redevelopment, investigating the adequate long-term policy instrument to revitalize historical port cities.

The research utilizes as a case study the historical port-city of Willemstad, Curaçao, located in the Dutch Caribbean. This case study helps to emphasize the importance of preserving the cultural-historical identity using adaptive reuse of existing buildings and monuments. These heritage buildings offer the experience value of cultural heritage, which can prosper to create an identity or new brand image to the surrounding area. Yet, the implementation of adaptive reuse requires extensive criteria of financial, social and environmental aspects. This research outlines a policy instrument to address these challenges, presenting a co-creation process among stakeholders, by investigating the process of shifting from preserving the heritage buildings through legal protection towards conserving through stimulating redevelopment. Thus, stimulating to serve diverse functions contributes towards urban resilience by adapting to future environmental and socio-economic challenges in the long term. Also, using collaborative strategies between stakeholders as a driving vehicle towards redeveloping into a city that respects the past and represents the needs of today's and future generations. Historical port-cities such as Willemstad showcased the need to be redeveloped sustainably by mitigating economic, environmental, and social tradeoffs. To mitigate future tradeoffs it is vital to enhance the identity of the city by aligning stakeholder goals. Policymakers must provide the basis for a comprehensive and action-oriented approach to stimulate market parties to implement the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which could be linked to positive incentives such as subsidies or tax reductions. By linking the findings from the empirical research to specific SDGs, helped to propose a policy instrument that manages urban resilience and stimulates it throughout diverse built environment scales and projects within Willemstad, Curaçao.