Green City Action Plan for the City of Chișinău 10 September 2019 Project supported by: Document prepared/owned/presented by: Document developed with the contribution of: / Consultants contributing to the development of the document: 2 Message of the Mayor of Chișinău Dear citizens of Chișinău, It is our pleasure and privilege to present to you a document where we have integrated all our project ideas that will make Chișinău a more liveable and environmentally friendly capital city. Our main goal is to enhance the quality of life of every citizen. The document in front of you includes a collection of actions that will help us to achieve this goal. Our city is growing very fast and we all would like to have access to good public transport services, well organised and maintained roads, safe and reliable municipal infrastructure services such as drinking water, wastewater collection, wastewater treatment, waste management, etc. We know that you are all aiming at living in a clean and well organised city. We ensure we are keen on making this a reality. The Green City Action Plan was initiated by EBRD in order to help us defining the development priorities of the city and structure the investment needs. It is an overarching document that focuses on 7 sectors (energy, water, waste, industry, buildings, land use and transport) and their needs for developments. We have considered that the city development needs to be an integrative process. Thus, we have defined 5 strategic development objectives for the city that incorporates the 7 sectors and looks at their linkages and complementarity. The objectives are referring at sustainable mobility and transport system, climate resilient blue-green infrastructure, energy efficiency, sustainable resource and waste management and last, but not least at enhanced capacities and urban governance. Our top priority is to help citizens. We know that a document is not going to improving the quality of life unless we work towards putting it into practice. We are ready to start the implementation of the GCAP and our top priorities are fully reflected into it. On short term, we will focus mainly on improving the waste management system of the city by establishing a performant collection, transport and treatment system. Further on, we will continue the efforts for developing a coherent public road infrastructure in conjunction with development, modernizing and restructuring the public transportation system. We are confident that GCAP will help our city development and we are keen on working together with any stakeholder that is ready to support our project ideas. We strongly encourage each citizen of Chișinău to be engaged and to contribute as much as possible for implementing the GCAP actions. Chișinău municipality and the team of experts that have worked on GCAP development would like to express their gratitude towards the Austrian Federal Ministry of Finance and Austrian Embassy in Chișinău for the financial support allocated for this project. Also, we would like to thank the representatives of European Bank for Reconstruction and Development and the team of consultants that worked for the GCAP development, for their guidance and constant support for Chișinău Municipality. We hope that our cooperation will continue, and we will implement together many GCAP projects. We hope that every citizen of Chișinău will be proud of our future green city. Mayor of Chișinău 3 Disclaimer This document was prepared by a team of consultants coordinated by RWA Group together with Arcadis and EcoContanct, for the benefit of the City of Chișinău. Any views, opinions, assumptions, statements and recommendations expressed in this document are those of the consultants and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the City of Chișinău. The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, the Austrian Federal Ministry of Finance (“the Donor”), or the City of Chișinău do not accept any responsibility whatsoever with regard to any claims of any nature by any third party relating, directly or indirectly, to EBRD’s role in selecting, engaging or monitoring RWA Group/Arcadis/ EcoContanct and/or as a consequence of using or relying upon the services of RWA Group, Arcadis and EcoContact. This document has been funded by the Austrian Federal Ministry of Finance. 4 Contents Acronyms ......................................................................................................................................................... 8 Executive Summary ......................................................................................................................................... 9 Chapter 1. ....................................................................................................................................................... 13 Introduction ................................................................................................................................................. 13 1.1. Background/context ........................................................................................................................ 13 1.2. Purpose of the plan ........................................................................................................................ 13 1.3. Structure of this document.............................................................................................................. 14 Chapter 2. ....................................................................................................................................................... 15 Methodology ............................................................................................................................................... 15 2.1. Methodology for GCAP development ............................................................................................. 15 2.2. Institutional setup and stakeholder consultation for GCAP Development in Chișinău ................... 15 2.3. Tailoring GCAP methodology for Chișinău ..................................................................................... 18 Chapter 3 ........................................................................................................................................................ 21 Baseline ...................................................................................................................................................... 21 3.1. City overview .................................................................................................................................. 21 3.2. City baseline: key findings of the technical analysis of the indicators database ............................ 28 Chapter 4 ........................................................................................................................................................ 36 Overall Vision and strategic objectives ....................................................................................................... 36 Chapter 5 ........................................................................................................................................................ 39 Strategic Objective 0. Enhanced institutional capacities for the implementation, assessment and monitoring of the sustainable urban development process ........................................................................ 39 0.1.3. Developing and enhancing the capacities of the staff within the Municipality of Chișinău .............. 45 0.2.1. Develop and/or update the local action plans .................................................................................. 47 0.3.1 Develop and/or update the local regulations ..................................................................................... 49 Chapter 6 ........................................................................................................................................................ 51 Strategic Objective 1. Sustainable mobility and transport .......................................................................... 51 1.1.1 Renewing the urban bus fleet ............................................................................................................ 54 1.1.2 Introducing one car-free day annually in the city centre .................................................................... 57 1.2.1 Creating controlled parking areas, managed by the municipal parking agency................................ 59 1.2.2 Developing and operating three principal bus corridors .................................................................... 61 1.2.3 Connecting urban parks and green areas with a cycle route and a bike sharing system ................. 63 1.2.4 Traffic calming in areas with schools, developing a network of connected sidewalks between schools ........................................................................................................................................................ 65 1.3.1 Road rehabilitation and maintenance ................................................................................................ 67 1.3.2 Creating an Urban Traffic Centre for traffic monitoring and traffic light optimisation ........................ 69 5 Chapter 7 ........................................................................................................................................................ 71 Strategic Objective 2. Climate resilient blue-green infrastructure .............................................................