Advisory Council supporting urban sustainable development

The Municipality of Gabrovo is looking for a new strategy to involve more participants in the urban development process, to encourage interaction and exchange of information between them, to ensure a more transparent approach to local government.

So far, thanks to the processes put in place through UrbanCOOP's project, the Municipality of Gabrovo established an advisory Council whose permanent staff includes representatives of branch organizations, utility companies, local and regional institutions, NGO sector, University of Gabrovo, etc., which have a direct relation to the development of Gabrovo. 

A the end of August the Municipality and the Council met for the first time.

The Mayor of Gabrovo, Mrs. Tanya Hristova, greeted the Council for getting involved in important urban development issues, for sharing common responsibility and searching new opportunities for sustainable and balanced urban policies. 

The Council’s structure, functions and regulations for work were the main focus of the first meeting. The future Council's commitment will be to discuss and consult the concepts of integrated territorial investments, as well as to propose ideas for projects related to urban development and their monitoring in the implementation phase. 

The scope of the Council  directly includes investments and projects foreseen in the Plan for Integrated Development of the Municipality of Gabrovo until 2027, as well as measures and solutions that will be advocated in the Climate Agreement to reduce the carbon footprint until 2030.  

The adoption of Regulations for the Council work was one of important items on the agenda of the first meeting. The document envisages the possibility external experts to be invited to the meetings in order to share expertise on specific topics. The media are part of the Council's monitoring body. The Regulations also provide for a flexible work model since Council members can participate in the meetings via video conference connection, send opinions, participate in remote meetings and discussions.

The first meeting ended with a presentation of the progress on the preparation of the Climate Agreement of Gabrovo, which must be submitted by September 15, 2024. It features climate change mitigation and adaptation measures.  In relation to it during the Council session the development of a new Green Strategy of Gabrovo was presented, as well as some planned activities like demo solution for irrigation with rainwater and creation of an early warning system in the event of critical, unexpected weather events.