Case Studies   The Danish Neighbourhood Regeneration Programme. Kvarterløft in Copenhagen

The Kvarterløft programme

Kvarterløft is a temporary programme with an investment frame of 160 Mill Euro distributed among 11 districts or projects. One project, the first pilot project of "Femkanten" (Pentagon) in Copenhagen, is not included in this figure. Money is partly used for special purposes, such as local secretariats and common amenities, but most of it is used for traditional building renewal and modernisation, although there are vast differences among the districts according to the quality of the building stock.

The investment frame is divided between national level and municipalities with various shares, between 75% and 20% national financing. In the investment frame for modernisation, also private funding is included.

Experience shows that money from the national level to large extent functions as "seed money", which forms a basis for attracting funding from other sources too. First and foremost municipal spending is often encouraged by relatively small amounts of national investments. For instance the project money for integrated urban renewal (Helhedsorienteret byfornyelse) is only 20% of the total amount spent, but still the municipalities regard the programme as attractive.

Furthermore, funding for special purposes, such as development of sports facilities, is put on top of the Kvarterløft funding, thus enlarging the total project.

1. The Kvarterløft programme     1.1.1 Purpose