Artan Kacani

XXXI Cycle - (A.A. 2015-2016)

IDAUP
Home Institution: Polis University Tirana
Scholarship
Curriculum: Urban Planning (ICAR20)
Research Topic: Policy efficiency on informal areas in Albania
Tutor DA-UNIFE: Prof. Romeo Farinella
Tutor Polis University: Besnik Aliaj
Nationality: Albanian

Email: artan_kacani@universitetipolis.edu.al

Profile

Biography
Artan Kacani (1988) is Lecturer and PhD candidate at POLIS University, dealing with projects and academic research on informal housing in Albania, with a specific focus on policy evaluation, governance and territorial impact. Recently he has been part of the Erasmus+ program in University of Minho in Portugal to focus more on studies regarding the territorial impact of expansive urban growth. From January to September 2017 has been part of the POLIS University Local Scientific Organizing Committee (L.O.C) for the coordination of European Network for Housing Research Conference, (TiranaENHR2017) held at POLIS University of Tirana. On January 2016 joins the team of POLIS University for the drafting of the General Local Plan (GLP) of Shkoder Municipality. Technical and methodological contribution has been given to the housing analysis and strategies for the compatibility of the Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) with the plan (GLP). On October 2015 joins the IDAUP Program, XXXI Cycle, on first year as PhD candidate. On the same year is enrolled for six months in an internship as specialist at the Regional Agency for the Legalization of the Informal Settlements in Albania (A.L.U.I.Z.N.I) into the Cartography Department of Durres Region. On December 2014 finishes the scientific master studies in Urban Planning and Policy Design at Politecnico di Milano. The final research thesis go to an analysis on the international development and cooperation programs in Albania in the last 20 years. An early experience on this field has been archived thanks to the internship at 'Laboratorio di Cooperazione Internazionale' at Politecnico di Milano on the same year. On 2012 finishes bachelor studies in Urbanistica e Pianificazione Territoriale at Politecnico di Milano with a research focus on housing stock in 'casa popolare' sector. He is author of various academic papers and newspaper articles on housing legalization and integration of vulnerable housing conditions.

Research skills
Informal Housing | Good Governance | Policy Evaluation | Responsiveness | Effectiveness

Scientific activities

ORCID ID:
0000-0002-3682-4226

IRIS UNIFE ID:
rp00000

Doctoral research

Measuring and comparing the policy efficiency and effectiveness of the urban agenda on informal areas in Tirana and Durres regional area.

According to the European Cohesion policies the 'Improving the efficiency of public administration' is the one of the main priorities of the ESF. This research gives theoretical, methodological and decisional model together on how it can happen in a housing sector where informal practices are rooted in the urban growth. Principles of the good governance, efficiency and effectiveness, are going to be part of the analysis and assessment of the urban agenda on legalization, urbanization and integration of informal practices. According to the European Commission on '2018 Communication on EU Enlargement Policy' Albania should implement regulatory and fiscal impact assessments across all ministries with a view to improving the quality of legislative and policy proposal, reflection of their financial estimates and their costing and budgeting of Medium Term Budget Plan. For this reason the state of art is based on three different theories on policy evaluation, called 'Responsive Focused Evaluation' and it measures costs and impact of a bad governance. Some principles of Responsive Focused Evaluation on this consideration are; wealth distribution, spatial justice, local decision model, and synoptic planning for strategies and local priorities. The urban agenda on 1) legalization, 2) urbanization and 3) integration of informal settlement and areas in Albania exists since 2006. For this purpose the national government created a regional agency to deal with these three objectives, named ALUIZNI. Now-days, only the region of Durres and Tirana counts more than 200.000 applications for a legalization process by covering a total of 8050 ha. On the administrative point of view the informal areas are divided in 55 units. What we know is that different areas has different levels of revenues from the legalization fee and different urbanization cost. Instead the last objective of the urban agenda, integration, has never been part of specific priorities. The financial revenues from this perspective are limited, and determined, by the number of settlements and their building surface, size of the land occupied, kind of activity if housing or economic, and legal constraints which basically can be divided in four macro hindering factors to get a legalization contract. And all these circumstances mostly have different costs for the applicants, which in various conditions has answered to tactical solutions to avoid them. Like creating two fences on the same land, or adding fences to close the activity long the street, or when the land size is larger than 300 square meter and every meter in addition would increase to the market value - which may result four times higher than the price given by ALUIZNI, respectively 25€. Other cases are when secondary settlements are build on the same land parcel for economic activities but are registered as housing. Other circumstance are when applications consist on semi build settlement and fence, in most of the cases with no inhabitants inside. The multiform of this informality is not only important for the revenues but mostly for the territorial impact that they have. Land fragmentation is one of these effects. Other effects are on the institutional capability to deal in a transparent way with the applicants, which in many cases has brought to corruptive and speculation practices. The role of director and gatekeeper of ALUIZNI has generated an informal practice that in many cases has created privileges for certain informal conditions and others not. Urbanization from the other side is an important element that has shaped the urban morphology of the informal settlements and buildings. Here there's to underline that not all the informal areas has been applied this objective (2), urbanization, and this due to two factors. The first is strictly retailed to revenues and hindering factors mentioned before, the other doe to the decisional model applied to direct investments or revenue's reversibility. The research criticized the ad hoc model and the exportation of the revenues (from legalization fee) to other parts of the city and it proposes a rational model which monitors the final investment, revenues and urbanization costs, in a synoptic model. Synoptic planning typically looks at problems from a systems viewpoint, using conceptual or mathematical models relating ends (objectives) to means (resources and constraints) with heavy reliance on numbers and quantitative analysis. Despite its capacity for great methodological refinement and elaboration, the real power of the synoptic approach is its basic simplicity. The fundamental issues addressed-ends, means, tradeoffs, action-taking-enter into virtually any planning endeavor. (Hudson, 1979). This inability to manage the informal areas and to bring in the informal areas urbanization has created further effects on the territory, strictly retailed to the mobility. A half assumption is that where urbanization has missed, informal practices has flourished the multiform. Mostly of the cases, this inability to act on time, has left to no space for public spaces and other aggregative places to meet for the inhabitants. Densification and development has been raised freely for 27 years. Beyond the administrative costs expressed, the process of legalization, urbanization and integration of informal practices seems a process of infinite self-reshaping and tactics doe to legal constrains, firstly to the land by creating a deeper fragmentation and secondly to the mobility network and spaces. This perpetual condition has effected in a way or another all the informal areas by creating a fractal problem on these two issues, land fragmentation and low mobility network.

Keywords
Theory Driven Evaluation | Empowerment Focused Evaluation | Utilization Focused Evaluation | Responsive Focused Evaluation | Hindering Factors/costs